What weeds? Is the community really interested? Trials and tribulations of a weed mapping, data sharing and community engagement project inFar North Queensland

摘要

The Wet Tropics region of Australia is emently'home to 28 vertebrate pests and over 500 naturaliseci plant species with an increase of approximately 200 of those over the past decade (Goosem 2007). Within these plant species, over 85 are identified assianificant weeds (Werren 2004). The tropical climate and the demographic of invasives resulting from both agriculture and horticulture combine to create a high level of risk to the region's natural assets particularly through weed invasion. These favourable eoditions or invasive species see many resources ejtpeiided on management across all sectors. The collection of di ta on the distribution and status of pests can sometimes be a one-way transaction. Once submitted, contributors to mapping projects often never see their data again. One ofthe real challenges to engaging stakeholders in pest mapping is to ensure information can be returned to the contributor in a meaningflil way with real utility. Stakeholders across Far North Queensland have been working towards a regional data sharing and mapping approacli since 2005. Riis ongoing;; collaboration has led to the development of simple but effective data collection and display methodology based on a 1 km grid, fhe next stage of the project steps iniothe realm of web-based delivery and interaction and will enable not just stakeholders but the whole community to access, submit and display data in a generic imemet based mapping environment. This paper discusses the progress of the project to date including the technology and principles behind the collection, the display of regional pest data and the partnerships that built the project. Fundamentally, it also addresses the issue of community buy-in and engagement in pest management and the question: 'How does the future and is an interactive web-based portal pan ofthe answer?'