What is best practice management?
Best practice management aims to reduce the negative impacts of pest animals using the most humane, target-specific, economic and effective techniques available. This involves:
- a focus on reducing pest animal impacts rather than just removing pest animals
- managing actual rather than perceived impacts
- strategic management (e.g. sustained ongoing management rather than sporadic 'crisis' management)
- coordinated group management rather than individual management
- integrated use of approved management techniques that are the most effective, target specific, humane and safe ones that are available. Refer to the NSW Codes of Practice and Standard operating procedures for the effective and humane management of pest animals.
About planning
Most pests are highly mobile and can readily replace those that are killed in control programs. Unless actions are well planned and coordinated across a broad area, individual control programs are unlikely to have a lasting effect.
When planning pest management, there are some important steps that should be considered. They are:
- understanding the trigger to undertake pest management – is the pest species listed in a Regional Strategic Pest Animal Management Plan?
- gathering all the information prior to developing a plan.
- determining what the problem is e.g. fence damage, reduced lambing percentage or neighbours complaining
- identifying who is responsible and who are the keys parties or individuals that have an interest in dealing with the pest issue
- identifying the area of concern, it may help to remove the agency or property boundaries at first so the problem can be viewed across the broader landscape before determining who needs to be involved and what other jurisdictional consideration need to be identified
Developing a plan
Plans should be written to clearly communicate their intent. Being clear about who the plan is for will help guide the scope of what should be included. It is best to use a hierarchy of terminology that not only guides the ‘on-ground’ actions but also facilitates the ability to measure and evaluate the success of achieving the desired outcomes of the plan.
For more information see Preparing specific and measurable pest animal management plans.
Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Improvement (MERI) framework for pest animal management in NSW
Once the objectives of a pest animal management program are clearly defined, measurable metrics and targets need to be determined to track program performance. Effective monitoring and evaluation allows program managers to determine whether implementation needs to be improved or even whether the objectives need to be reconsidered. The Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Improvement (MERI) framework for pest animal management in NSW will help improve the consistency and comprehensiveness of data collection and reporting on pest animal management in NSW. It provides background on the purposes and challenges of MERI and presents a wide range of parameters and metrics that could be used to track the performance of pest animal management at input, output and outcome levels.