Ord aims for a community biosecurity culture

CRICHTONA — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:39:48 +0000

Community members can provide an effective first line of defence in the battle against plant pest incursions, but raising awareness of biosecurity issues is an essential first step in engaging hearts and minds.

In northern Australia, CRC for National Plant Biosecurity researcher Paul Royce conducted his PhD from his home base in Kununurra, Western Australia, focusing on community engagement to improve biosecurity awareness in the Ord River Irrigation Area (ORIA).

The ORIA produces a significant proportion of Australia’s cucurbits, mangoes, grapefruit and chickpeas and is supported through the OrdGuard program, which is a biosecurity agreement between growers, government, tourism organisations and councils in Western Australia. The program aims to protect the region’s comparatively pest free status by raising biosecurity awareness, policy and practice among all people living in and visiting the Ord River region.

Paul’s research into the information networks in the Ord region has found that brochures, road signs and websites are the most common points of information, but that these are static, one-way forms of communication that do not necessarily engage their audiences.

Within the primary industries sector, information was commonly shared between agricultural agencies and growers, but information provided to other sectors of the community was limited or non-existent.

An analysis of existing social networks in the Ord community identified five groups, in addition to the agricultural industry, with the capacity to play a significant role in biosecurity awareness and action: Indigenous groups, young people, government agencies, tourists and tour operators, and local residents.

“Much of our learning is gained unintentionally, through our everyday involvement in local activities, context and culture,” Paul says. “A change in biosecurity attitudes and practice will primarily take place through experiential participation. Biosecurity information should be participatory, reciprocal, transferable and exchangeable.”

He says community members are not equally motivated to adopt new knowledge or translate new knowledge into action and OrdGuard’s biosecurity strategies need to communicate how biological incursions can affect the individual and the broader community to generate more widespread awareness and action.

Biosecurity through community engagement: the OrdGuard case study

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