Enacting shared responsibility in biosecurity governance: insights from adaptive governance

Abstract

Amidst an increasingly complex global environment of trade and travel, with heightened concerns for the unintended or deliberate spread of species and diseases, biosecurity is a key policy goal in many parts of the world. In Australia, there is concern that invasive species (plants, animals, and diseases) enter, spread, and establish, threatening local industries such as agriculture, as well as human health and biodiversity. Shared responsibility for biosecurity is a recent policy direction that has gained great traction but requires improved conceptual and practical clarity in how local citizens are co-opted into or experience biosecurity programs. In this paper, we interrogate the framing and enactment of shared responsibility for biosecurity, propose a repositioning informed by attributes of adaptive governance that involves a clearer structuring of partnerships, and illustrate this through a case example of network-based, passive surveillance. This repositioning is organized around four pillars, where biosecurity is a part of dynamic cosmopolitan territories; enacted through diverse networks; integrating with existing types of knowledge, concerns, and practices; and forming networks of partnership. We consider implications for adaptive governance more generally, centering on structure, power, and decision making.