Narelle Dybing

Australia’s National Feral Pig Action Plan 2021-2031 is the first national strategy to reduce the extensive and diverse impacts caused by feral pigs to Australia’s environmental, agricultural, cultural and social assets by actively suppressing feral pig populations over time. Its development was instigated in response to growing threats of an exotic disease incursion, particularly African swine fever to the Australian pork industry. It provides a national framework for alignment of state, regional and local strategic feral pig management plans. The Plan was endorsed by Australia’s National Biosecurity Committee in October 2021 and aims to encourage land managers to work together in coordinated groups on a landscape scale, cross tenure basis, and strategically apply the most appropriate combinations of best practice management methods for their region (National Feral Pig Action Plan 2021). Its 10-year time frame reflects the long time required to reduce impacts from feral pigs, and their populations, as well as the enormity of the task. Many stakeholders, including governments, agricultural industries, natural resource management organisations, universities, Indigenous organisations, private land managers and not for profit environmental conservation managers are being engaged to support the Plan’s implementation. In Australia, how feral pig management is being undertaken needs to shift from being fragmented, ad hoc and reactive to be more coordinated, collaborative, strategic, and proactive; with activities supported by strong and trusted partnerships between all land managers. This paper discusses several initiatives being undertaken to support the implementation of the National Feral Pig Action Plan 2021-2031. These initiatives are principally directed at improving the efficacy and efficiency of on-ground best practice management actions by land managers by influencing practice and behaviour change and undertaking monitoring to fill significant data and knowledge gaps.