Pest management planning for weeds (invasive plants)

Although landowners are not required to develop a property pest management plan for weeds (called invasive plants in the Biosecurity Act 2014), effective planning is an extremely useful management tool.

Benefits of planning

Developing a pest management plan for weeds will help you:

  • effectively control these weeds on your property
  • comply with invasive plant control laws
  • integrate control activities and other components of your property plan
  • coordinate control activities with your neighbours
  • improve efficiency by ensuring control activities are prioritised and resources are used at optimal times
  • monitor how well control activities are working
  • report progress to funding bodies and local governments.

Developing and implementing a property pest management plan

Plan

Generally, a property pest management plan involves both maps and written information.

Your plan should:

  • give background information on property and ownership details
  • include a property map to help in analysing weed risks for your property
  • define the weed plant problems on your property
  • assess risks and identify priorities for weed control
  • set overall goals and specific targets and describe the actions that you plan to undertake to achieve them
  • describe how you plan to monitor your progress and measure your success.

You should also seek input from neighbours and weed control experts on your draft plan.

Act

Implement the control activities outlined in your plan within the set time frame and budget.

Check

You need to monitor your control activities and their effect on weed infestations on your property.

Review

The information gathered from monitoring will enable you to evaluate how successful you have been in implementing control activities and meeting your targets. You can then review your plan and make necessary changes to future weed control activities.

Also consider...