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New Zealand calls for adaptive governance regime
Published: Monday 13 July 2009
The proceedings of a 2-day workshop on nanotechnologies in a New Zealand context call for ‘more information on health and environmental impacts of nanotechnologies’. Entitled ‘Nanotechnology – here and now’, the proceedings from the conversations of the workshop held on the 23rd and – 24th April 2009 report the discussion sponsored and hosted by the MacDiarmid Institute of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology, the Ministry for the Environment, Toi te Taiao: the Bioethics Council, and the Royal Society of New Zealand.
According to the proceedings, ‘there are, at present, a very limited number of commercial nanotechnology developers in New Zealand, but there is extensive research activity and we are encountering nanotechnologies through a range of imported products, processes or services.’
The proceedings summarise that ‘the meeting focussed significantly on possible concerns about nanotechnology, and so it is important to recognise that the participants generally accepted that there is a very real potential for important benefits, and that it is vital that New Zealand puts systems in place to maximise them. The focus on negatives is perhaps recognition that, in the past, governance of new technologies has often been poor and that there is an opportunity to do things much better with nanotechnology. [...] Certainly more information is sorely needed, but there was no doubt that the sentiment of the workshop was that uncertainty should not be used as an excuse to delay attempts to govern or regulate. It is worth noting that many of the concepts discussed at the workshop are related to the idea of an adaptive governance regime.’
Follow this link to download the full workshop proceedings.