Empowered communities or "cheap labour"? Engaging volunteers in the rationalised management of invasive alien species in Great Britain.

Volunteers are increasingly involved in the delivery of nature conservation policies, usually supported by a twofold rationale: volunteering can (a) enhance citizen participation in environmental governance and (b) ensure a workforce is in place to support conservation work in times of budget shortages. Here, we ask how these two rationales correspond to volunteers' own motivations to engage in a specific nature conservation activity, namely the control of invasive alien species (IAS). We use qualitative interviews with professional project managers, local group leaders, and volunteers to examine the interactions between policies aiming to rationalise the management of IAS and the motivations for and goals of volunteer engagement. Our findings suggest that although volunteering can lead to positive conservation outcomes, satisfying experiences and empowerment, the different interests do not always align in practice. We investigate the implications of strategies that aim to improve the efficiency of invasive species and volunteer management, and discuss organisational arrangements that reconcile different objectives.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  Journal of Environmental Management

• Publication date

  2019-01-01

• Fields of study

  Political Science, Sociology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.06.053PMID 30001886
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• From killing lists to healthy country: Aboriginal approaches to weed control in the Kimberley, Western Australia.

  2019cited by this paper
• The parakeet protectors: Understanding opposition to introduced species management.

  2019cited by this paper
• The role of invasive alien species in shaping local livelihoods and human well-being: A review.

  2019cited by this paper
• Explaining people's perceptions of invasive alien species: A conceptual framework.

  2019cited by this paper
• Stakeholder engagement in the study and management of invasive alien species.

  2019cited by this paper
• When free-ranging dogs threaten wildlife: Public attitudes toward management strategies in southern Chile.

  2019cited by this paper
• Environmental Stewardship: A Conceptual Review and Analytical Framework

  2018cited by this paper
• Trust Building and Boundary Spanning in Cross-Border Management

  2018cited by this paper
• Killing squirrels: Exploring motivations and practices of lethal wildlife management

  2018cited by this paper
• The dynamics of volunteer motivations for engaging in the management of invasive plants: insights from a mixed-methods study on Scottish seabird islands

  2018cited by this paper
• Invader Relative Impact Potential: a new metric to understand and predict the ecological impacts of existing, emerging and future invasive alien species

  2017cited by this paper
• Killing Carp (Cyprinus carpio) as a Volunteer Practice: implications for community involvement in invasive species management and policy

  2017cited by this paper
• Community-led initiatives’ everyday politics for sustainability – Conflicting rationalities and aspirations for change?

  2017cited by this paper
• Using a WebMapping Platform to Engage Volunteers to Collect Data on Invasive Plants Distribution

  2017cited by this paper
• Conflict in invasive species management

  2017cited by this paper
• The large‐scale removal of mammalian invasive alien species in Northern Europe

  2016cited by this paper
• Not seeing is not believing: volunteer beliefs about Burmese pythons in Florida and implications for public participation in invasive species removal

  2016cited by this paper
• The compensatory potential of increased immigration following intensive American mink population control is diluted by male-biased dispersal

  2016cited by this paper
• Ecological Impacts of Alien Species: Quantification, Scope, Caveats, and Recommendations

  2015cited by this paper
• Contrasting visions of science in ecological restoration: Expert-lay dynamics between professional practitioners and volunteers

  2015cited by this paper
• The political ecology of weeds: a scalar approach to landscape transformations

  2015cited by this paper
• Global change and local solutions: Tapping the unrealized potential of citizen science for biodiversity research

  2015cited by this paper
• Invasive Narratives and the Inverse of Slow Violence: Alien Species in Science and Society

  2015cited by this paper
• The Public and Professionals Reason Similarly about the Management of Non-Native Invasive Species: A Quantitative Investigation of the Relationship between Beliefs and Attitudes

  2014cited by this paper
• New York City's oyster gardeners: Memories and meanings as motivations for volunteer environmental stewardship

  2014cited by this paper
• Capturing mink and data : Interacting with a small and dispersed environmental initiative over the introduction of digital innovation

  2013cited by this paper
• Impacts of biological invasions: what's what and the way forward.

  2013cited by this paper
• Manipulating risk communication: Value predispositions shape public understandings of invasive species science in Hawaii

  2013cited by this paper
• To boldly go where no volunteer has gone before: predicting volunteer activity to prioritize surveys at the landscape scale

  2013cited by this paper
• The big society: Rediscovery of ‘the social’ or rhetorical fig-leaf for neo-liberalism?

  2013cited by this paper
• Motivational functionalism and urban conservation stewardship: implications for volunteer involvement

  2012cited by this paper
• The voluntary sector and conservation for England: achievements, expanding roles and uncertain future.

  2012cited by this paper
• Community Volunteering as Neoliberal Strategy? Green Space Production in Berlin

  2012cited by this paper
• Pour une autre représentation métaphorique des invasions biologiques

  2012cited by this paper
• Animal welfare and ethical issues in island pest eradication

  2011cited by this paper
• Involving the community in rodent eradication on Tristan da

  2011cited by this paper
• A review of citizen science and community-based environmental monitoring: issues and opportunities

  2011cited by this paper
• Building the Big Society

  2011cited by this paper
• A framework for sustainable invasive species management: Environmental, social, and economic objectives.

  2011cited by this paper
• How Big is the Big Society

  2011cited by this paper
• Assessing citizen science data quality: an invasive species case study

  2011cited by this paper
• Turning back the tide of American mink invasion at an unprecedented scale through community participation and adaptive management.

  2011cited by this paper
• Invasive species control: understanding conflicts between researchers and the general community.

  2011cited by this paper
• International conservation ‘volunteering’ and the geographies of global environmental citizenship

  2010cited by this paper
• Eradications and People: Lessons from the Plant Eradication Program in Galapagos

  2010cited by this paper
• Participation Under Time Constraints: Landowner Perceptions of Rapid Response to the Emerald Ash Borer

  2010cited by this paper
• Living with Alien invasives. The political ecology of wattle in the eastern highveld Mpumalanga, South Africa

  2009cited by this paper
• Feral Hogs: Invasive Species or Nature's Bounty?

  2009cited by this paper
• Marine invasive species: validation of citizen science and implications for national monitoring networks

  2007cited by this paper
• Making Space for “Neo‐communitarianism”? The Third Sector, State and Civil Society in the UK

  2005cited by this paper
• Preserving Space for Volunteers: Exploring the Links between Voluntary Welfare Organisations, Volunteering and Citizenship

  2005cited by this paper
• Eradications of invasive alien species in Europe: a review

  2005cited by this paper
• The war of the roses: demilitarizing invasion biology

  2005cited by this paper
• Environmental citizenship in the making: the participation of volunteer naturalists in UK biological recording and biodiversity policy

  2004cited by this paper
• When is eradication of exotic pest plants a realistic goal

  2003cited by this paper
• Today Tiritiri Matangi, tomorrow the world! Are we aiming too low in invasives control?

  2002cited by this paper
• Dispositional and organizational influences on sustained volunteerism: An interactionist perspective.

  2002cited by this paper
• Neoliberalizing Space

  2002cited by this paper
• ‘Hired Hands’ or ‘Local Voice’: Understandings and Experience of Local Participation in Conservation

  1998cited by this paper

• Assessing the consistency of control activities with priority zones for aquatic invasive rodents in Western France

  2026cites this paper
• Retaining Volunteers Through Political Economic Change: Austerity, Boundary Work, and the Making of an Unpaid Workforce in Newcastle’s Parks

  2025cites this paper
• Promoting volunteer tourist service performance in protected area: the impacts of self-efficacy

  2025cites this paper
• Conservation and geography I. Getting into the weeds; the “new” conservation and invasive species management

  2025cites this paper
• Conserving forest ecosystem services through collaborative management in the Mount Cameroon national park landscape

  2025cites this paper
• People’s Perception and Awareness towards Plant Invasion, Its Impacts on Forest Ecosystem Services and Livelihood: A Tale of Central Himalayas

  2024cites this paper
• How to close the loop with citizen scientists to advance meaningful science

  2024cites this paper
• Stakeholder mapping to support invasive non-native species management in South America

  2024cites this paper
• Cross-sectoral role and community empowerment in controlling schistosomiasis in Indonesia

  2024cites this paper
• Legibility of Sans-Serif Typeface on Different Paper Grades Made from Invasive Alien Plant Species

  2024cites this paper
• Citizen science is a vital partnership for invasive alien species management and research

  2023cites this paper
• Understanding Community Participation in Tree Planting and Management in Deforested Areas in Cameroon’s Western Highlands

  2023influential citation
• Systems thinking for general surveillance programs – practical insights and limiting factors to guide resourcing decisions

  2023cites this paper
• An investigation of outdoor recreational users' willingness to participate in aquatic invasive plant control

  2023cites this paper
• Mosaic governance in Denmark: a systematic investigation of green volunteers in nature management in Denmark

  2022cites this paper
• A review of volunteers’ motivations to monitor and control invasive alien species

  2022influential citation
• Dynamic Species Distribution Modeling Reveals the Pivotal Role of Human-Mediated Long-Distance Dispersal in Plant Invasion

  2022cites this paper
• Motivations and contributions of volunteer groups in the management of invasive alien plants in South Africa’s Western Cape province

  2021cites this paper
• The red zone: Attitudes towards squirrels and their management where it matters most

  2021cites this paper
• Use of social-media networking to facilitate a grass-roots lionfish removal program in the British Virgin Islands

  2021influential citation
• Variations in the Motivations of Environmental Citizen Scientists

  2021cites this paper
• Early detection of marine invasive species following the deployment of an artificial reef: Integrating tools to assist the decision-making process.

  2021cites this paper
• A framework for improving understanding of volunteers' motivations to monitor and control invasive alien species

  2021influential citation
• Engager les pratiquants de loisirs dans la gestion des invasions biologiques : une co-production territoriale

  2021cites this paper
• Assessing biological invasions in protected areas after 30 years: Revisiting nature reserves targeted by the 1980s SCOPE programme

  2020cites this paper
• More than sweat equity: Young people as volunteers in conservation work

  2020cites this paper
• The role of citizen science in management of invasive avian species: What people think, know, and do.

  2020cites this paper
• Tourist biosecurity awareness and risk mitigation for outdoor recreation: Management implications for Ireland

  2020cites this paper
• Tourism biosecurity risk management and planning: an international comparative analysis and implications for Ireland

  2020cites this paper
• The Social Dimensions of Biological Invasions in South Africa

  2020cites this paper
• On the merits and pitfalls of introducing a digital platform to aid conservation management: Volunteer data submission and the mediating role of volunteer coordinators.

  2020cites this paper
• Himalayan balsam, Impatiens glandulifera : its ecology, invasion and management

  2020cites this paper
• The challenges of long‐term invasive mammal management: lessons from the UK

  2020cites this paper
• Explaining people's perceptions of invasive alien species: A conceptual framework.

  2019cites this paper
• Citizen Science and the Neoliberal Transformation of Science – an Ambivalent Relationship

  2019cites this paper
• Jute bioblanket as a soil rehabilitation strategy in Sorocaba, Brazil: Soil chemistry and SWOT approaches

  2019cites this paper
• Identifying thresholds and ceilings in plant community recovery for optimal management of widespread weeds

  2019cites this paper
• The human and social dimensions of invasion science and management.

  2019cites this paper
• Stakeholder engagement in the study and management of invasive alien species.

  2019cites this paper
• Community perception and prioritization of invasive alien plants in Chitwan-Annapurna Landscape, Nepal.

  2019cites this paper