Many parts of the arid Western U.S. are faced with “grassification”: an ecological state change from a traditionally fire-proof desert ecosystem to a fire-prone grassland. This ecological state change is driven by unchecked spread of invasive grasses, a “common bad” that spreads across jurisdictional boundaries and threatens to radically change fire risk and fire regimes throughout the desert Southwest. In this paper, we ask: how do land managers, resource users, local governments, and other actors respond to an emerging threat to a shared landscape? What institutional tools and governance arrangements are available to help address emergent threats, how are these tools used, and how do these arrangements evolve over time? Our long-term case study is based on several years’ worth of interview, survey, and institutional data about efforts to address invasive buffelgrass in Pima County, Arizona. Our analysis is guided by Baldwin et al.’s Context-Operations-Outcomes-Feedback framework to show how land managers, resource users, fire districts, counties, scientists, and local conservation organizations have developed a set of polycentric institutional arrangements to address this emergent problem. Our case study spans 30 years, from the first recognition of invasive buffelgrass on the landscape through more recent efforts to create long-enduring collaborative governance arrangements. We show how efforts to address this “common bad” are aided by growing awareness of the problem, high-profile natural disasters, coordination among actors, and resources from higher levels of government, as well as how efforts are constrained by external shocks and limited governmental support for self-governance.
