Science for social licence to arrest an ecosystem-transforming invasion

Abstract

The primary role for scientific information in addressing complex environmental problems, such as biological invasions, is generally assumed to be as a guide for management decisions. However, scientific information often plays a minor role in decision-making, with practitioners instead relying on professional experience and local knowledge. We explore alternative pathways by which scientific information could help reduce the spread and impacts of invasive species. Our study centred on attempts to understand the main motivations and constraints of three local governance bodies responsible for the management of invasive (wilding) conifer species in the southern South Island of New Zealand in achieving strategic and operational goals. We used a combination of workshop discussions, questionnaire responses and visits to field sites to elicit feedback from study participants. We applied a mixed inductive-deductive thematic analysis approach to derive themes from the feedback received. The three main themes identified were: (1) impacts of wilding conifers and goals for wilding conifer control, (2) barriers to achieving medium- and long-term goals, and (3) science needed to support wilding conifer control. Participants identified reversal and prevention of both instrumental (e.g. reduced water availability for agriculture) and intrinsic (e.g. loss of biodiversity and landscape values) impacts of wilding conifer invasions as primary motivators behind wilding conifer control. Barriers to achieving goals were overwhelmingly social, relating either to unwillingness of landowners to participate or poorly designed regulatory frameworks. Consequently, science needs related primarily to gaining social licence to remove wilding conifers from private land and for more appropriate regulations. Scientific information provided via spread and impacts forecasting models was viewed as a key source of scientific information in gaining social licence. International experience suggests that invasive species control programmes often face significant external social barriers. Thus, for many biological invasions, the primary role of science might be to achieve social licence and regulatory support for the long-term goals of invasive species control programmes and the management interventions required to achieve those goals.

Cost effectiveness of spread mitigation strategies for polyphagous shot hole borer Euwallacea fornicatus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae)

“…So too can ethical, health and safety concerns around the use of toxins like pesticides ( 37 – 39 ). Demonstrating the cost effectiveness of different strategies, as the current study has done, can help to overcome these and other sources of social resistance ( 40 ).…”

Predicting Community Participation in Passive Pest Surveillance

“…An implication of our results is that the potential for passive surveillance by the public can be improved by either increasing involvement with preventing the spread of a pest or increasing involvement with surveillance. The former requires persuading target audiences that pest infestations will have unfavourable consequences for the achievement of their functional, experiential or self-expressive needs [7,48], for example, by persuading people that an invasive pest may pose a direct threat to their health, lifestyle, income or culture now or in the near term. This may partly explain, for example, why there was public support for aerial spraying near urban areas in Napier, New Zealand, to eradicate the southern saltmarsh mosquito (Aedes camptorhynchus) but public opposition to aerial spraying near suburbs in Auckland, New Zealand, to eradicate Painted Apple Moths (Orgyia anartoides), a horticultural pest, and in suburbs in Hamilton, New Zealand, following the discovery of an Asian Gypsy Moth (Lymantria dispar asiatica), another horticultural pest [49,50].…”