An ecological game to enhance the pest-free New Zealand debate
The goal of creating a pest-free New Zealand, whether aspirational or real, will inevitably lead to heated debate, with both proponents and opponents using facts and figures to strengthen or weaken support for such a goal. Eradicating invasive species is a complex challenge, not only because of technical issues, but because of necessity it will involve many people and communities. As soon as the public becomes intimately involved, the complexity of the challenge increases considerably, and the issue becomes a ‘wicked problem’. This is because interest groups with differing values will see the problem differently and are unlikely to agree to whatever solution is proposed. Thus, individuals or groups with entrenched interests (e.g. protection of biodiversity vs protection of the lives of animals, or your pest vs my resource) raise different values, and will protest every choice suggested by managers from multiple value and scientific perspectives.Given the significant challenge that wicked problems pose, one potential contribution to assist discussion and resolve conflict is to ensure participants are as well informed as possible about the complexities of the ecological issues of invasive species and the impacts they have on New Zealand’s indigenous species and ecosystems. As well, participants need to be informed about the complexities of managing invasive species including control effectiveness, perverse outcomes, non-target and environmental risks, and costs.
Communicating science information, especially complex issues, is difficult because the public have limited access to scientific journals and, even when they can access them, are not always familiar or comfortable with such media. In reverse, ascertaining stakeholders' goals and objectives is also difficult because communication between individuals and scientists and managers is limited, and assessing which opinions come from an informed point of view or which are pure rhetoric is also difficult.
Pen Holland and Bruce Warburton, in collaboration with Hazel Bradshaw (Human Interface Lab, Canterbury University) and Julian Looser (Dried Frog), have been developing a novel approach to better inform individuals and increase communication between science and the public using a computer game based on possum interactions with forest, choices for managing possums, and the consequences of such choices. Players will learn about known, science-based interactions between pests and forest ecosystems, and the management choices and their consequences, while their preferred strategies and attitudes to the available management tools can be captured and analysed. This will, for the first time, enable crowd sourcing (i.e. seeking solutions by online outsourcing ) to be used for generating possible management strategies, assessing public perceptions on a large scale, and ascertaining whether and how perceptions change if more information is provided in an engaging way.
To underpin the development of the game, a model of the best available knowledge is required. Although many separate models have been developed to address individual components of possum control (such as possum dynamics, bait consumption, or browse-induced tree mortality rates), decision-making for the whole problem requires an integrated model of all of these. Pen has developed a ‘whole-of-system’ simulation model of interactions between possum management and tree condition (Fig. 1). The foundation of the model is a virtual landscape created using digital elevation and forest composition data derived from real locations. A population dynamics module (based on data about individual possums) sits in the landscape, simulating birth, death and dispersal processes in response to available food (calculated from the relative palatability of individual, simulated trees within possum home ranges). Management tools such as traps, bait stations or bait can be placed into the landscape via ground or aerial control operations, and possums then interact with these tools, and may subsequently die. In addition, repeat tree monitoring may be simulated by tagging individual trees and recording canopy health. The costs of control and monitoring operations are calculated from the cost of equipment and deployment (e.g. ground-based contractors transport and remuneration), so that control effort (cost/time) versus benefit (e.g. kills/increased tree health) can be estimated for a given monitoring and management strategy.
Ultimately the game will be released over the Internet, as a source of both entertainment and scientific information (Fig. 2). Players' actions and winning strategies will be analysed to get feedback on how perceptions differ, and to find publically acceptable solutions to pest control problems. Computer games can provide an accessible, fun way to engage the public in complex problems and to motivate people to rise to challenges and develop new skills by harnessing their innate curiosity. This can be used for learning by carefully embedding learning outcomes into gameplay goals, which hides the overtly educational content from the player. Hopefully, such an initiative will ensure participants that get involved in the debates that will inevitably arise around the goal of pest-free New Zealand do so as informed participants rather than misinformed supporters of entrenched positions.
This work was funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
Pen Holland & Bruce Warburton
Hazel Bradshaw (HITLab)
Julian Looser (Dried Frog)
Fig. 1 The Graphical-User-Interface that underpins the game includes forest and possum population dynamics and some control options.
Fig. 2 The game environment that players interact with.
