New development: Public sector responses to complex socio-ecological issues—no silver bullets for rabbits

ABSTRACT

This article reports on a United Nations-award winning initiative, the Victoria Rabbit Action Network (VRAN), which applied a systems approach, underpinned by a democratic and participatory engagement strategy, to manage one of Australia’s worst pests: the European rabbit. Over six years of the initiative there has been a shift away from a regulation-and-enforcement focused model, towards a community-led, government-supported approach. This has enabled the collective planning, resourcing and implementation of rabbit management programmes. This article outlines the learnings and implications for policy and public management.

IMPACT

This article provides new perspectives for policy-makers and programme managers to framing and responding to ‘wicked’ problems.

KEYWORDS:

• Community
• democratic
• engagement
• invasive species
• participatory
• systems
• wicked problems

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge funding support from Agriculture Victoria, the former Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) and the Australian Government through the CRC Program. This work was also supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Federal Appropriations Project PEN04633, Accession number 1014522. We thank the many people who have contributed to the Victorian Rabbit Action Network.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).