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Department of Agriculture

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  2. Biosecurity and trade
  3. Pests, diseases and weeds
  4. Protect your animals and plants from pests and disease
  5. Biosecurity engagement

Sidebar first - Pests diseases weeds

  • Protect your animals and plants from pests and disease
    • Biosecurity engagement
    • Plate it. Don’t plant it.
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Biosecurity engagement

All Australians can contribute to maintaining Australia’s biosecurity status. There is an increasing notion that biosecurity is a shared responsibility between government, industry and the community, as suggested in the Beale review, 2008. Australians from all walks of life can contribute to maintain Australia’s biosecurity status by:

  • complying with best biosecurity p​ractice (for example, not taking fresh produce into pest-free areas and controlling pests in backyard fruit trees); and
  • helping address biosecurity issues (for example, reporting suspected exotic pests, weeds or diseases or becoming volunteer pest monitors).

In order to get community members on-board it is important to engage them effectively. The Engaging in Biosecurity project (May 2008 – February 2012) investigated how the community could be best engaged to address biosecurity issues; it developed a proposed National Plant Biosecurity Engagement Framework, as well as, a number of other products that could contribute and create more effective community engagement with biosecurity issues.

  1. A basis for a national action plan for biosecurity engagement (‘big picture’ focus)
    • Developing a national action plan for community engagement about plant biosecurity — Consultation summary report
  2. Best recommended practices (regional and local focus)
    • Biosecurity engagement guidelines: principles and practical advice for involving communities
    • Biosecurity engagement guidelines: how to develop an engagement strategy including a monitoring and evaluation component
  3. Tools and mechanisms
    • Involving volunteers in biosecurity programs (an information sheet)
    • Communicating biosecurity messages in print (an information sheet)
    • A biosecurity engagement checklist for policy-makers and senior staff in government and industry (2011)
    • A checklist for investing in biosecurity engagement programs
    • A checklist for biosecurity engagement practitioners

Other documents of interest include:

  • Biosecurity engagement: Literature review
  • Biosecurity engagement: Gap analysis
  • Volunteer monitoring in biosecurity: An issues paper
​

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Page last updated: 03 January 2023

We acknowledge the continuous connection of First Nations Traditional Owners and Custodians to the lands, seas and waters of Australia. We recognise their care for and cultivation of Country. We pay respect to Elders past and present, and recognise their knowledge and contribution to the productivity, innovation and sustainability of Australia’s agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries.

Artwork: Protecting our Country, Growing our Future
© Amy Allerton, contemporary Aboriginal Artist of the Gumbaynggirr, Bundjalung and Gamilaroi nations.

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