ABSTRACT
Policy .................................................................................. 243 10.5 Illustration: The Research and Scientific Information Standard
for New Zealand Fisheries ..................................................................... 244 10.5.1 New Zealand Fisheries ............................................................. 245 10.5.2 Science in Fisheries Management and Ecosystem
Sustainability Decisions ........................................................... 246 10.6 Concluding Comments ........................................................................... 248 References ............................................................................................................. 249
This chapter starts from the premise that much public policy-making in complex areas such as environmental and conservation policy depends on both scientific* evidence, which is almost always incomplete, and public values, which are almost always in dispute. This means that scientific input into the policy process will almost always be contested territory. It is unlike other forms of scientific information, such as an academic paper shared among peers or the provision of health information to the public. This is not because such scientific input is qualitatively different from any other insight derived from peer-reviewed scientific methods, but because of its position within the policy-making processes of modern democracies, which by their nature are a normative exercise in balancing public values.
