Those of you who have been following the team for a while will be familiar with the Biocontrol of Weeds book. This is an educational PDF resource containing information on 79 weeds and their biocontrol agents that have been worked on by the weed biocontrol team at MWLR over the years. From this year on the book will take on a new form as website HTML pages. The upgrade will make weed biocontrol information easier to find with modern internet search tools and more accessible to view across different devices. The content will also be easier to update as new research is completed and new biocontrol agents are approved. We are in the process of sourcing and creating new imagery to provide our users with more, and better, visual resources for learning about our often shy and sometimes tiny biocontrol agents.
Weed Biocontrol on Twitter (link below)
In addition to the 104 new weed and agent fact pages created, the wider content architecture has been rethought. The weed biocontrol landing page now has six subsections catering to different questions a user may ask when they visit the weed biocontrol pages on MWLR’s website:
- About biocontrol: a page for the public to learn about what biocontrol is, how it is used, and how safe it is.
- Our research: at the time of writing this page is still under construction, but it will showcase our science and the contributions our team have made to the field of weed biocontrol.
- Weeds and biocontrol agents: links to all our newly created weed project pages and biocontrol agent pages.
- Applications to release biocontrol agents: a page displaying all current and past applications to release biocontrol agents, information on the process, and how people can get involved.
- Weed biocontrol newsletter: links to our Weed Biocontrol, What’s New? newsletter and sign-up form.
- Resources: downloadable content, such as forms, guidelines/instructions, and learning resources.
In addition to the website changes, the team has enlisted the help of science communication contractor Jenny Leonard to develop and implement a new social media campaign. The purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness of weed biocontrol within farming communities, rural professionals, iwi, hapū, community groups and councils.
Keeping the social media preferences of these different audiences in mind, Jenny selected two platforms to promote weed biocontrol: Twitter and Facebook. “Communities and individuals use a broad range of social platforms,” said Jenny. “However, Facebook and Twitter are the most popular among regional councils. Using these two platforms should give us the best reach,” she added.
The social media content strategy focuses on offering fun and educational content highlighting the principles of biological control science, as well as real examples of weed biocontrol successes that have been achieved in New Zealand. Just a week after launching we had dozens of followers on Twitter and over a hundred followers on Facebook. We hope these new platforms will increase our target audience and drive more traffic to our site, as well as create general interest in weed biocontrol as a tool for weedy problems.
If you would like to follow the weed biocontrol team’s activities and get involved in the conversation, please follow us on Facebook and Twitter using the links below. And be sure to check out our new webpages:
Twitter: @WeedBiocontrol
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/weed.biocontrol/
Website landing page: https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/discover-our-research/biodiversity-biosecurity/weed-biocontrol/
This project is funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Sustainable Food, Fibre and Futures Fund (Grant #20095) and the National Biocontrol Collective.
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