During May and June, there were exciting developments in the collaboration 3 with major US universities around issues of community action in natural resource governance, which are being led by the Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law. UNE and Penn State University signed a memorandum of understanding to continue to advance their strong collaborations within the ARC Funded project on “Next Generation Landscape Governance” and the Invasive Animals CRC funded projects on “Facilitating Effective Community Action”. This MOU will be the basis for extending that already effective collaboration.

Representative of that work, UNE and Penn State have formed further collaborations with Sam Houston University and Cornell University, to advance research on the human and institutional dimensions of natural resource management, with a particular emphasis on reforms that will better motivate and enable citizens to take action on the control of invasive species like wild dogs, rabbits, cats and pigs. Included in this research is work on reforming legal and institutional arrangements to remove impediments and strengthen supports for effective action.

As part of this work, a team of US specialists spent time with UNE and other colleagues, investigating how significant improvements might be made to motivational and support arrangements and associated institutions.