The most compelling part is the last paragraph describing the "Campaign":

> By April 1960, Chinese leaders realized that sparrows ate a large amount of insects, as well as grains.[7][8] Rather than being increased, rice yields after the campaign were substantially decreased.[9][8] Mao ordered the end of the campaign against sparrows, ... as [their] extermination ... upset the ecological balance... . By this time, however, it was too late. With no sparrows to eat them, locust populations ballooned, swarming the country and compounding the ecological problems already caused by the Great Leap Forward, including widespread deforestation and misuse of poisons and pesticides.[9] Ecological imbalance is credited with exacerbating the Great Chinese Famine, in which 20–45 million people died of starvation.[10][11]