Overview

Welcome

Welcome to this exciting unit in community engagement, developed specifically for professional scientists and technical officers working in the plant biosecurity industry, and other areas of natural resources management. This includes people such as:

• national, state and territory government quarantine, horticulture, agriculture staff
• horticultural industry members, enterprise owners, staff or advisers
• defence personnel
• protected area managers and wildlife & conservation professionals
• community ranger program leaders

Image courtesy of Penny Wurm

Biosecurity

Biosecurity includes concerns for the prevention, management or eradication of outbreaks of pests/animals, diseases and weeds.

Why do people in these professions and practices, concerned about biosecurity, need to know about “community engagement”?  Biosecurity and natural resources management cannot be done by agency professionals and experts alone - it requires the whole community. 

Community

What is meant by “community”?  This includes those who may cause, be impacted by or in a position to manage or prevent a biosecurity event.  Although biosecurity professionals may advise, assist or act upon biosecurity situations, this will also always involve the wider community. 

Biosecurity and natural resources management practitioners, with backgrounds and expertise primarily in the sciences, will be equipped with insights, knowledge and skills to engage with their community for biosecurity and other natural resource management problems. 

We welcome you to approach this unit with an open mind and a desire to solve problems!

 

Assumed Knowledge

This postgraduate unit is a core unit in the national Graduate Certificate, Diploma or Master of Plant Biosecurity.

Postgraduate or advanced undergraduate students in other programs are eligible to take this unit.

It is presumed that all students in this unit have completed at least 5 semesters of study towards their undergraduate degree, or have at least two years of industry experience.

It is also expected that students enrolling in this unit have the scholarship skills to undertake 400 level study

About the unit

This unit is taught collaboratively by the School of Environment and the Centre for Social Partnerships in Learning (SPiL), at CDU.

The unit has been developed by Charles Darwin University, in collaboration with colleagues from Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity, their partner universities, and partner agencies. As such the unit content draws upon industry case studies, current research and industry best practice.

This is a core unit within the Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma and Master of Plant Biosecurity, offered by a national consortium of Murdoch University, La Trobe University, University of Adelaide and University of Queensland.

Please refer to the course website at www.plantbiosecurity.org.au for more information about this program as a whole. The unit is also available to students enrolled in other programs at CDU, or non-consortium members by cross-institutional enrolment.