A common theme of discussions about the translation of conservation science into policy is the failure of researchers to transmit and explain the findings of their research in a way which leads to changes in legislation, policy or practice to the benefit of conservation (e.g. Nature 2007; Goulson et al. 2011; Hulme 2011). These often recognize that the publication of a scientific paper is not the way to communicate with policymakers or practitioners, as they rarely read such material, and may fail to understand the policy or practical implications of complex statistical analyses or detailed scientific arguments or the relevance of the conclusions reached by the work. These discussions generally place an onus on researchers to find ways to express their work so that it is understood and then used by the policymaker or practitioner, but they usually offer little guidance on how this might be achieved. Equal emphasis should be placed on the responsibility of policymakers to engage with, and understand scientists, and to adopt an evidence-based approach, but the subject of this paper is to suggest ways in which ecologists can contribute to improve the process. Formal scientific education rarely exposes students to the policy-making process and does not explain the methods, metrics or workings of the policy-developing elements of the civil service or government agencies. A failure to understand this and to appreciate the attitudes and needs of policy developers will greatly hamper the dissemination of hard-won research knowledge. The recent change from the term ‘knowledge transfer’ to ‘knowledge exchange’ implies the need for two-way conversations with policymakers, rather than ‘scientists telling…’ (Young et al. 2014). The increasing emphasis placed on scientists to deliver research which has relevance and impact as well as scientific quality (e.g. the recent science assessment changes introduced by the UK Research Councils) means that the need to understand the ‘policy customer's’ needs and attitudes has never been greater. This paper offers a personal perspective on how this might be achieved in the context of a small country or political administration. Scotland's population is around 5 million, its core civil service is just under five thousand staff (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2012/12/4598/11), and its largest agencies and non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) have a staff of a thousand at most (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/public-bodies/about/Bodies). This small size may make parts of the process simpler to achieve, as it is possible to know most or all of the key players in a particular policy area. There are many definitions and uses of the word policy. A political definition is as follows: ‘The basic principles by which a government is guided; the declared objectives that a governing party seeks to achieve in the interest of the national community’ (Business Dictionary 2014). To achieve its policy, a government may enact (or repeal) legislation, but there are many other means and actions through which policy goals can be achieved. Pielke (2003) describes policy as ‘a commitment to a particular course of action’. Similarly, a management definition is as follows: ‘The set of basic principles and guidelines formulated and enforced by a governing body to direct or limit actions in pursuit of its long-term goals’ (Business Dictionary 2014). This management definition could encompass the entire objectives of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, for example, or simply the management policy that drives the conservation activities on one of its many nature reserves. So, how are these basic principles, objectives and courses of action developed, and what helps to form them? From a scientist's perspective, the mantra of ‘evidence-based policy-making’, oft-quoted in government circles, is very welcome indeed. In 1997, the UK government published ‘The Government Chief Scientific Adviser's Guidelines on the Use of Scientific and Engineering Advice in Policy-Making’. In the latest version (Government Office for Science 2014), Sir John Beddington states ‘A key element of my role as the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser is to work across government to embed an evidence-based approach to policy-making’. In the development of conservation policy, scientific evidence must play a key role. This evidence should include elements of natural science, social science and economic analysis, but the policy-development process will also include elements of ethics, political philosophy, societal values and not least political judgement. To some scientists, the latter elements may be frustrating, even illogical, but they are key elements of democratic policy-making. This is recognized by Beddington, who states that ‘Scientific advisers should respect the democratic mandate of the Government to take decisions based on a wide range of factors and recognize that science is only part of the evidence that Government must consider in developing policy’. The role of the scientist is to ensure that the scientific evidence is presented in the most useful and influential form possible. To provide useful evidence, it is important to understand the needs and perspective of the policymaker you are seeking to influence, to ‘know your enemy’. I suggest that a policymaker will be looking for nine elements in scientific evidence and advice: It will also help if you understand the likely backgrounds, perspectives and careers of policymakers as you develop these alliances. This could be a treatise in itself, and Table 1 probably traduces both scientists and policymakers by making sweeping and defamatory generalizations of one and all. However, this might provide some insight into the perspectives of the policymaker you are aiming to work with and influence. Policymakers will seek and receive scientific evidence from a number of sources. They will seek information from sources they consider to be reliable and unbiased and with whom they are familiar. The most immediate and informal advice, and perhaps the most frequent, will be provided by scientific staff within their own organization, the scientific advisors within the civil service. If they work a few desks away from the policymakers and communicate with them very frequently, the physical proximity will generate a high degree of trust in the advice offered. This concept of proximity extends outside the core civil service and relates to the nearness of the organization concerned to central government. In part, this relates to whether the organization has objectives linked to government objectives, whether it is seen as independent, or whether it is seen as having an agenda or objectives different to those of government. A broad hierarchy of proximity and trust is shown in Table 2. The Scottish Government has recently established a new mechanism for receiving specialist scientific advice, funding three ‘Centres of Expertise’ from its strategic science programme (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Research/About/EBAR/StrategicResearch/future-research-strategy/CoE). These provide scientific advice on climate change, water and animal health; all are virtual centres, comprising a group of expert scientists from research institutes and universities who provide analysis and advice in response to questions from SG and its agencies and NDPBs. Their role is not to undertake new research, but to synthesize the available information. Through this mechanism, these scientists are getting closer to the core and becoming more trusted and valued in the advice they offer government officials. The last decade has seen a step change in the emphasis placed on the conservation of the marine environment. This has included the development of proposals for marine-protected areas in Scottish waters, many of which have received close scrutiny from marine conservationists, fishermen and other users of the marine environment. In comparison with the terrestrial environment, marine data collection is far more difficult and expensive and is generally far less complete and more reliant on sample data. The identification of important sites and of their potential boundaries relies on expert judgement based on extrapolation and interpolation of data from a wide range of sources, of varying ages, gathered by many different methods. There are data from targeted marine habitat surveys, led by SNH, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) and Marine Scotland; survey work conducted by industry, and volunteers recording information while enjoying the marine environment. Some of these data are very recent, while some are much older. Some data were in a format which could be used immediately while other data needed to be processed before they were usable. A key action for SNH marine staff was to collate and curate all the available data and present them in a way which would explain these judgements to any concerned party, regardless of their knowledge or perspective. Summary information on the population size and distribution of many of Scotland's marine species was presented in Scotland's Marine Atlas (Baxter et al. 2011). This provided vital contextual information in respect of individual site assessments, and its simple presentation style was accessible to everyone. It was produced by a consortium of interested parties and published by the Scottish Government, which added credibility to the data it contained. To be able to advise on Nature Conservation Marine-Protected Areas (MPAs), SNH needed to ensure there were sufficient high-quality data for each site. Staff also concluded that it was important to publish the detailed assessments of the data used for individual MPA proposals. For each proposal, SNH completed a Data Confidence Assessment (DCA) (http://www.snh.gov.uk/search-results/?q=data+confidence+assessment), whose purpose is to provide a summary of the evidence and of SNH's confidence in it so that anyone can review the data used. The detailed information contained in each DCA can be viewed on the SNH website and includes maps, data set dates, details and origins and a statement of SNH's confidence in the data quality. However, assessments such as this are dry and complex to the layperson, so SNH produced a ‘Site Summary’ for each proposed Nature Conservation MPA, with photographs of key features, simple maps and concise, plain English explanations of the important features (e.g. SNH 2014a). These were especially valuable to civil servants without specialist marine biological knowledge, even though their primary purpose was to inform the general public. This combination of documents enabled SNH to deliver both the simple and the complex information behind the proposal, conveyed a rapid understanding of the principal points and also provided the transparency to enable anyone to examine the detailed evidence in support of the proposal. When terrestrial wind farms began to be built in the UK, much work was done to develop objective methods to assess their environmental effects. In Scotland, close working between government ecologists and staff dealing with renewables policy and consents led to the development of standards for key elements of the environmental statements provided by developers as part of the consenting process. This included the development and publication of statistical collision risk models (e.g. Band, Madders & Whitfield 2007), the linking of bird collision data to demographic models and the means of assessing and reporting on the hydrological risks of development on deep peat soils. This close relationship also led to the development of standard requirements for post-construction monitoring and to the establishment of the Scottish Windfarm Bird Steering Group (http://www.swbsg.org/). This examines the relationship between birds and wind farms and encourages dialogue and agreement on scientific methods and findings. The group has representatives from SG, SNH, the Scottish renewables industry and RSPB Scotland, with an independent Chair and Secretariat. This aims to agree common methods that can be interpreted transparently by all parties and to learn from ongoing bird monitoring at wind farms across Scotland. In time, this should lead to the collation and release of data which are held as ‘commercial in confidence’ at present and provide opportunities to undertake both correlative (Pearce-Higgins et al. 2009) and longitudinal studies on the effects of wind farms on bird populations. This work has helped to pave the way for the more difficult discussions and issues related to marine renewables. Much remains to be carried out on the modelling of the effects of offshore wind farms on bird populations (especially with long-distance migrants) and on the difficulty of collecting direct data on avoidance and collisions, seabird flight heights, migration flight-path data and the capacity of birds to avoid turbines at night and in bad weather. With underwater renewable devices, these problems are further exacerbated and novel indirect monitoring techniques will need to be developed and agreed. Throughout this, there remains a clear intention by all parties to develop early agreement on scientific methods, standards and interpretation between decision-makers, developers and conservation bodies. Another area of interest in renewable energy is the construction of small-scale run-of-river hydroelectric power schemes. However, small, active watercourses in the ravine-like topography in the west of Scotland have also been identified as internationally important for their hygrophilous (water-loving) oceanic bryophyte (moss and liverwort) communities (note the need for two languages). SNH has commissioned the development of methods to assess these watercourses (Averis et al. 2012), in circumstances where it would not be possible to undertake comprehensive surveys. From this work, a published map and associated guidance to developers provide an assessment of over 5600 watercourses across the west of Scotland (SNH 2014b). The availability of this information has also been publicized in the sectoral press (Genney & Rothero 2014). The map aims to help developers take account of Europe's most important watercourses for these bryophyte species before selecting sites for potential hydro-development. Individual watercourses, or sites that contain multiple watercourses, have been assessed for their known and potential importance. There is clear guidance as to whether a watercourse is known to hold important bryophytes or is likely to be of low importance, and whether further survey is recommended. This approach emphasizes the value and benefit of providing both the complex information and simple summary data, freely available to all interested parties (developers, policy and consent civil servants and conservationists). This helps to guide policy decisions, strategy development and consenting decisions to minimize the effects of hydropower developments on an important element of Scotland's natural heritage. Twenty years ago, non-native species issues were not a priority issue in UK government policy. The emphasis placed on the issue by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at its fourth meeting in 1998 (see CBD 2014) led Defra to convene a formal review of non-native species policy (Defra 2003). The review group had substantial involvement from scientists from the outset; scientists chaired all three of the working subgroups and had major inputs into the final report and recommendations. The report led to the formation of the GB Non-Native Species Secretariat (NNSS), which operates across GB on behalf of the three government administrations and is managed by a programme board including senior staff from the government agencies and NDPBs. The NNSS promotes a wide range of actions to help eradicate, control and monitor invasive non-native species, and much has been carried out in the absence of new legislation. However, it was clear that legislative improvements were also needed to make effective policy in several areas. In Scotland, the formation of the Scottish Working Group on Invasive Non-native Species meant that government and non-government scientists had the opportunity to contribute to the development of non-native species legislation from the early stages of its development. The first element of the group's mutually agreed work programme was to ‘contribute to the development of the Wildlife and Natural Environment Bill proposals – input into the Bill as it is considered by the Scottish Parliament – draft the Code of Practice to support the Bill – consider any practical issues arising from implementation of the Bill.’ (Non-Native Species Secretariat 2014). The scientists' knowledge of key issues, such as invasive mammals on Scottish islands, was combined with the knowledge of the policy staff to form effective legislation within the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act (2011). An example of this is the use of ‘paving’ legislation; this enables SG to introduce a ‘Code of Practice’ and to identify and list species which may not be kept, sold or traded because of their invasive capacity. The code and lists are introduced as secondary legislation, which is far simpler to revise and amend than the primary legislation and means the policy on non-native species can be far more responsive to change. The lists themselves are being developed by the working group, with scientists playing a key role in identifying the species most likely to be problem invasive species. The group also advises on the need for rapid response to new colonizing invasive species and continues to be an excellent example of scientific and policy staff working together to deal with a difficult conservation policy issue. These principles and examples emphasize the need for ecologists to engage early with policymakers, to build ongoing long-term relationships with them, to think of their needs and perspectives and to ensure the evidence presented, and its interpretation is simple, clear, available to all and well documented. It is also vital to engage in fora which enable dialogue with all of the parties interested in an issue. In Scotland, the development and implementation of the new biodiversity strategy (Scottish Government 2013) and the follow-up of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (2011) will both present new challenges; the ‘mainstreaming’ of these will require the constructive engagement of a wider range of civil servants less familiar with ecology. However, meeting this challenge and engaging in this dialogue are surely the way to progress the development and implementation of conservation policies for the future. Ian Bainbridge is Head of Science for Scottish Natural Heritage. He advises on science and research across SNH, whose remit spans marine and terrestrial biodiversity, wildlife management, social research, landscapes, geodiversity and green space. From 2001 to 2009, Ian was Chief Ecological Adviser and Deputy Director for Science Advice and Information in the Scottish Government. He has worked in conservation for over thirty years, previously with RSPB Scotland and the Wildlife Trusts. He chairs the UK Scientific Working Group on the EU Birds Directive's Special Protection Areas and led for the EU on the development and adoption of the CBD's Island Biodiversity Work Programme.
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