There are obviously important biological and procedural factors that influence the success of a weed biological control project (See Prioritising Weed Biological Control Agents and What Factors Affect Success and Failure?). The most important of these are that the agent to be introduced can be shown to cause significant damage or mortality to the target pest and to be specific to that pest and not adversely affect other non-target organisms. However, as shown in the Figure below, there are likely to be other conditions that need to be met for successful biological control, particularly as part of an integrated weed management program. These could include whether the existing land management strategy will encourage and not hinder the establishment and spread of the biological control agent, whether the biological control strategy will be more cost effective than the practices which farmers are presently using, and whether there is a support system that will monitor and adjust the biological control strategy as conditions change. If weed biological control strategies are to be successful, then all of these factors may need to be met. Failure can be due to not meeting just one of these factors.

If we look at potential weed biological control projects in the context of the Figure below, there are two ways in which we can attempt to increase the chances of success. First, we need to make sure that the project proposal is drafted to best meet the conditions identified in the Figure below, and is thus likely to be supported by all stakeholders. Second, we can work on reducing the constraints to the successful establishment and spread of biological control agents, through modifying land management practices, for example, and helping to integrate biological control with other practices.

Of all possible weed management strategies (+), there may be only one (*) that falls within the bounds of all conditions required of the strategy.

While descriptive and quantitative systems analysis techniques, including computer modelling (See Evaluation) could be of value at a later stage (Norton and Mumford 1993), we recommend that the broader issues that might influence success of biological control are best dealt with initially through a participatory process. As described in the following pages, this involves a participatory problem specification and planning workshop, the development of appropriate action plans and setting up the basis for on-going participation in implementation.

Several types of participatory processes could be used to allow a wide range of issues to be raised and discussed relatively quickly, including rapid rural appraisal, participatory rural appraisal, focus groups, and various types of structured workshops. The common themes of these approaches are qualitative data gathering, active participation of those who have an interest in the outcome of research, and facilitating responsiveness of research to both on-farm and off-farm decision-makers (Foster et al. 1995).

The participatory approach to weed biological control that is being advocated in this section can be viewed as consisting of two inter-related elements: participatory planning and participatory implementation.

[ Next ]  

Larissa Bilston and Geoff Norton