Governments are passing on increasing responsibility for pest management to affected communities, but many communities are not prepared for the extra demands placed on them.
This challenge has prompted Dr Tanya Howard, a research fellow with University of New England’s Centre for Agriculture and Law, to produce a book exploring how community pest management works in practice.
“The legal and policy shift towards shared responsibility for pest management is causing concern that governments are devolving pest management responsibility at a time when they are also cutting back on funding for resources like Landcare,” Dr Howard said.
“Communities are seldom prepared or equipped to deal with the recurring problem of Australia’s vast invasive pest challenges, so we decided to pull together some lessons from communities to help people on the ground work through these issues.”
Community Pest Management in Practicewas written with Dr Howard’s colleagues from Pennsylvania State University in the United States. The book surveys community development across a wide field to identify lessons of value to communities working on the frontline of pest control.
“Communities are not simple things. They have conflicts over values, leadership issues, and resistance to government regulation — there are all sorts of social and human dynamics that need to be worked through for communities to come together and act effectively.”
It has long been assumed that governments are primarily responsible for pest management. However, pests have proven stubborn in the face of control measures, and emphasis has moved to management rather than control.
Dr Howard said that in an associated movement, a policy principle called the General Biosecurity Obligation has since 2015 been shifting the State and Federal emphasis towards “shared responsibility” for pest management.
“The General Biosecurity Obligation recognises that some pests will remain a recurring, persistent problem, and governments need communities and individuals to share the responsibility for managing them.”
Community action is only effective when coordinated. “It’s very clear that if in a community of landholders, you have one landholder who doesn't put pig baits at the same time, a pig control program will be ultimately ineffective.”
Dr Howard’s book is written around the idea that shared stories are essential if communities are to build shared visions for landscape and pest management.
“We collected stories of real-life experiences, including case studies from wild dog management in Western Australia, to reveal how individual and collective stories around the same subject can differ.”
“The stories clearly show that if we want to build shared responsibility for pest management, then we need to talk and listen to a range of perspective. We need to create a shared story and vision for the future — not just within the affected community, but between community and government.”
Howard, T. M., T. Alter, P. Frumento and L. J. Thompson (2018). Community pest management: a narrative approach. Melbourne, Springer.
Available in hardcover and e-book from the Springer website:
