Sharing responsibility for managing roadside weeds

Roadside weeds affect landscape-scale weed management and are consistently raised as a concern by weeds has been identified as vital to the success of area-wide weed management programs in cropping areas (Height et al. 2022). Yet, little research has engaged councils on the topic to understand their experiences, needs and capacities. This project aimed to address this gap by investigating how councils in cropping areas across Australia work with neighbouring landholders to control roadside weeds, and how state governments support them. Thirty-five interviews were undertaken: 20 with council weed officers across Australia; and 15 with staff of regional and state government agencies with weed management responsibilities. The results showed that councils are much more likely to work on roadsides on their own than work collaboratively with adjoining land managers, despite believing in the need for greater collaboration. There were only two best practice case studies identified where councils worked with cropping land manager/s to manage roadsides to achieve tenure-blind management of weeds. Councils identified that obtaining support of growers is as critical as having the resources to undertake roadside management of weeds. They recognise that achieving such support requires time to build long-term relationships, yet there is limited scope for this within the current system. There is a need for greater state government funding and supporting legislation that enables, encourages and rewards tenure-blind roadside weed management.

Height, K., Campbell, R., Graham, S., & Llewellyn, R. (2024). Sharing responsibility for managing roadside weeds. Proceedings of the 23rd Australasian Weeds Conference Brisbane August 2024., pg261. https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:AP:24e14be0-0ebf-450d-8433-5b3c7fd07a45?viewer%21megaVerb=group-discover