Overcoming barriers to build partnerships for managing plant invasions under global change

Abstract

Non‐native plant invasions are a cross‐boundary conservation challenge, requiring coordinated management and policy responses underpinned by science. Global change is expected to exacerbate this challenge by changing abiotic and biotic drivers of invasive plant distribution, abundance, and impact. Current approaches may no longer be effective, and management must adapt to new threats and conditions. Collaborative personal and institutional partnerships are crucial to link research to practice and policy in order to better manage the complex drivers of invasions and mitigate their impacts under ongoing global change. We used examples from local to global scales to demonstrate how reciprocal knowledge exchange and project codesign among researchers, practitioners, and policy makers can improve conservation outcomes and benefits from invasive species management. Researchers provide expertise needed to apply concepts to new contexts, practitioners hold essential local knowledge, and policy makers balance competing priorities. Combining these strengths leads to more effective and resilient management of plant invasions. This highlights the central importance of collaboration among people, including Indigenous peoples and other local communities, in decision‐making and management. Best practices for developing partnerships between individual researchers and local and Indigenous communities, practitioners, and policy makers include engaging respectfully across knowledge and value systems, testing assumptions with data, considering ecological significance, and connecting across spatial scales. Structural solutions to overcome institutional and implementation barriers and develop effective partnerships include funding knowledge brokers and liaisons, collaboratively reviewing policies and practices, incentivizing long‐term relationships and goals, and codeveloping data collection and storage. The resulting intentional, long‐term partnerships will enable direct application of ecological knowledge to plant invasions and their management, support sustainable and locally backed solutions, and overcome lags in applying science to practice.

Bibliographic Information