18 October 2011, Neretva Valley - International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Entomologist Rui Cardosa releasing sterile fruit flies in a non-SIT or Sterile Insect Technology zone. Sterile insect technology consists of rearing massive quantities of the same pest, sterilizing it by irradiation through a simple radiation device that otherwise causes no harm to the insect. The male insects are fed and later systematically freed in the fields, where they then mate with the pest insects present in the field, producing no progeny so that after the continuous release over several years the pest disappears.