Three cooperative pathways to solving a collective weed management problem
The spread of pest plants is a trans-boundary problem that causes losses to biodiversity and disrupts ecosystems. Much social research into, and policy development for, weeds has conceptualised their control as a problem facing individual landowners, rather than as a collective action problem. In the case of serrated tussock (Nassella trichotoma), a highly invasive, noxious weed that is widespread in southeastern Australia, landowners and government staff are acutely aware that this weed is a communal problem.