SELLING THE STORY

Pest problems cannot be solved without community support, but communities first need educating. Ignorance is pervasive and a paradigm shift is needed. In today’s Information Age, pest managers should draw upon the expertise of the communications industry to help sell their message. Alien invasions, fortunately, are very newsworthy. In Australia and New Zealand, many innovative programs are underway. They include pest strategies, weed awareness weeks, brochures, posters, reports, technical papers, books, media items, computer services, community groups, pest identification days, garden plant replacements, courses, nursery campaigns and children’s activities. Even so, exotic pests have not received the publicity they deserve. We need to sell the big picture: that each weed is part of a vast alien invasion problem. Governments should be doing much more. There should be major media campaigns. Public perceptions about plants should be changed. Garden plants are not innocent products, but organisms programmed to thrive in the wild. Gardening entails ethical responsibility. Some useful rules for pest managers are: sell the big picture, learn from the media, be positive, always offer solutions, deliver a simple message, use words well, develop partnerships, be innovative and evaluate