Wetlands preservation and management on Chesapeake Bay: The role of science in natural resource policy

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Abstract
Wetlands preservation has recently become a favored cause of conservationists. Protection of wetlands is justified primarily on grounds of their beneficial biological and hydrological effects, so it is to the physical sciences that government and the public turn for the formulation of management policies. But scientific knowledge cannot be translated directly into good resource policy for society. Despite growing scientific sophistication, we are limited in our ability to understand and to predict the effects of man‐induced change on natural systems, especially ones as complex as the Chesapeake Bay and its associated wetlands. Moreover, an obsession with the exploration of physical processes obscures the more important task of understanding and controlling the social processes that lead man to alter nature. That is, natural resource management implies the management of social and economic, as well as natural, systems.