The Environmental Defence Society’s Better Linking Science to Policy project commenced in April 2021. Its objective is to explore the dynamics operating at the crucial science-policy interface through a case study of the development of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) 2020. The work was funded as part of the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge, through Challenge contractor, AgResearch.

The project investigated the role of science in the policy-making process in order to deepen understanding of the science-policy interface and the ways in which the scientific basis underpinning policy might be strengthened to better support good environmental decision-making.

A core strand of the project focused on the relationship between contemporary science and mātauranga Māori, the latter being an important knowledge input into modern evidence-based policy processes. The authors investigated potential synergies between mātauranga Māori and science, particularly those aspects of the ecological sciences which take a holistic systems-based approach. They also sought to identify some of the tensions between the two knowledge systems.