Methods

Local-level Weed Prevention Areas (WPAs) are cooperative weed management areas with a prevention and early control focus. Proactive cooperation is critical and leadership for coordination is provided by county weed boards, weed districts and agency coordinators, extension agents, and concerned landowners. Weed prevention areas consist of weed-free, or relatively weed-free, rangeland ecosystems. They currently range in size from 150,000 to 450,000 acres. Weed prevention areas are delineated on the basis of invasion threat, ecological status, geographic characteristics, and the number of landowners that would advocate the development of invasive weed prevention programs. Boundaries usually follow section lines or visual markers like waterways and roads. The three important steps in developing WPAs are identified below:

• Preliminary meetings and initial assessments are conducted with landowners and federal and state land managers to designate the WPA, identify leadership, and design a locally based prevention program. To ensure a rapid response, local prevention programs focus on private landowners since they are often the first to detect a new invader.
• A series of workshops and learning group discussions are conducted with landowners to share information and gather project recommendations. These discussions formulate site-specific decisions to encourage ownership and collective implementation of integrated plans that are designed by landowners. This, in turn, promotes adoption of prevention stewardship through a “learn-by-doing” approach to maintaining weed-free ecosystems over the long-term.
• Long-term WPAs are protected from weed spread with proactive weed management efforts implemented by private landowners and guided by WPA-specific, integrated plans. Each plan is clearly presented as a two-page strategy with full-color weed alert fact sheets that include diagnostic and biological information, habitat requirements, and early control techniques. Plans include education, exclusion, detection and eradication, mapping, and ecosystem management components, and are evaluated annually.

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Last Modified: 08/02/2007