LB 11-113 - Traveling Internationally? The Don't Pack a Pest program can help you reduce biosecurity risks from hitchhiking pests during your travels.

Often unbeknownst to travelers, packing and shipping behaviors during international travel is a pathway for invasive species. Academic travelers are international students, study abroad students, and faculty who travel internationally for research or education. Over the past three decades, academic travelers represent a large and one of the fastest growing segments of the global traveling community. The Don’t Pack a Pest (DPAP) campaign is an educational and outreach partnership between USDA APHIS, Customs and Border Protection, state departments of agriculture and universities to advise international travelers to check before you pack and declare agricultural items at borders. The goal of the program is to prevent the spread of hitchhiking invasive species on agricultural items, biological specimens, natural handicrafts, medicines, foods, and debris that may pose a threat to ecosystem structure, function, and services. Our team studies the risk of invasive species spread by academic travelers to identify effective communication and outreach strategies specifically tailored to their needs. We use social science approaches to illuminate international and study abroad traveler packing habits. We are learning that faculty do travel with items such as food, nature-based items, and research specimens; however few are aware of packing guidelines or permit requirements. Our research elucidated "academic travelers journey maps" to identify critical control points where outreach would be most effective for minimizing pest risks. We learned that research faculty need support in complying with permitting for research specimens. Faculty serve a critical leadership role by modeling appropriate behavior and sharing information with their students. Data shows that students value information on packing and look to their institutions for accurate and timely information. We developed the @Academic Traveler Ambassadors and the Institutional Community of Partners programs to effectively reach the academic travelers. These programs support and engage students, faculty, and international program leadership with knowledge and tools for safe and sustainable travel practices. The program is growing nationally as universities, faculty, and international program partners across the nation begin to adopt and implement the Don't Pack a Pest information and outreach tools into their programming. This poster will explain how to become engaged in this national campaign to minimize the spread of Invasive species.