Enacting Resilience: A Performative Account of Governing for Urban Resilience

Resilience is an increasingly important urban policy discourse that has been taken up at a rapid pace. Yet there is an apparent gap between the advocacy of social-ecological resilience in scientific literature and its take-up in policy discourse on the one hand, and the demonstrated capacity to govern for resilience in practice on the other. This paper explores this gap by developing a performative account of how social-ecological resilience is dealt with in practice through case study analysis of how protection of biodiversity was negotiated in response to Melbourne’s recent metropolitan planning initiative. It is suggested that a performative account expands the possible opportunities for governing for social-ecological resilience beyond the concept’s use as a metaphor, measurement, cognitive frame or programmatic statement of adaptive management/co-management and has the potential to emerge through what has been called the everyday ‘mangle of practice’ in response to social-ecological feedback inherent to policy processes

Implementation Gap between the Theory and Practice of Biodiversity Offset Multipliers

Emerging policies worldwide require biodiversity gains as compensation for losses associated with economic development, seeking to achieve “no net loss” (NNL). Multipliers – factors by which gains are larger than associated losses – can be crucial for true NNL. Here, we review the theoretical literature on multipliers. Then, we collate data on multipliers implemented in practice, representing the most complete such assessment to date. Finally, we explore remaining design gaps relating to social, ethical, and governance considerations. Multiplier values should theoretically be tens or hundreds when considering, for example, ecological uncertainties. We propose even larger multipliers required to satisfy previously ignored considerations – including prospect theory, taboo trades, and power relationships. Conversely, our data analyses show that multipliers are smaller in practice, regularly <10.0, and have not changed significantly in magnitude over time. We recommend that NNL policymakers provide explicit multiplier guidelines, require larger multipliers where appropriate, and ensure transparent reporting of multipliers used. Further research is necessary to determine reasons for the implementation gap we have identified. At the same time, there is a need to explore when and where the social, ethical, and governance requirements for NNL reviewed here can be met through approaches other than multipliers

Critical Incident Analysis: Equip to avoid failure

This work is set in the context of perioperative practice in difficult airway management. It integrates a root cause analysis and fish bone technique to investigate a critical incident in temporary yet crucial equipment failure. Risk management and incident reporting is analysed alongside human factors in the operating theatre environment. Finally, recommendations for risk reduction, vigilance and checking vital airway equipment are made in anaesthetic practice. </jats:p