Community Pest Management Planning – A Case Study

Haapakoski H¹*

1. Land Protection, Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Nambour, Queensland, Australia

Southeast Queensland is a very diverse environment; it is heavily populated with many unique natural ecosystems. Pest plants and animals are second only to land clearing as being the biggest threat to biodiversity. This case studies outlines observation and lessons learnt through a community engagement process involving the community and 38 local governments.
New legislation required all Queensland local government’s to develop local government area pest management plans. Local Government’s were comfortable with pest planning for local government controlled land the move to include private and state lands was new and challenging.

Key challenges that required addressing to start the community engagement process were planning apathy, lack of trust, loss of control, no commitment and anger. The aim was to show the local government’s the engagement opportunities that would occur from the process and that this would result in improved planning.

Conflict occurred when it came to identifying and prioritising pest species. How the groups resolved this was by mutual respect for diverse views and allowing technical experts to present the facts on contentious pests.
Key lessons included the use of a template. This worked well as the varied stakeholder groups did not want to start with a blank piece of paper knowing previous planning already existed. The working groups used the template and adapted it to their own specific needs.

The lessons learnt through this community engagement process must be addressed to get the community back around the table for the plans are to be reviewed in four years time.