Improving How Science Informs Policy Within an Ecosystem Management Approach.

Science is fundamental to sound policies, particularly when it comes to implementing an Ecosystem Management Approach (EMA). We believe science can and should inform nearly all facets of an EMA, yet we recognize there are many challenges to this aspiration which is reflected by the relatively few examples such a comprehensive science-driven EMA. To help identify and better understand these challenges we used a qualitative case-study approach to compare the challenges and successes of implementing a science-driven EMA in the Laurentian Great Lakes. These case studies include improving coastal resilience, delisting of Areas of Concern, and addressing the challenges of declining offshore productivity. These case studies were selected because they provide a set of very different, yet complementary, cases for assessing the implementation of an EMA and the factors influencing the science-policy exchange that informs it. From this comparative assessment we identified a diverse set of challenges and successes. Some were systemic while others were more case-study specific. Also, emerging from this comparative assessment were principles and enabling conditions we believe are critical to consider when establishing or improving a science-driven EMA that will be the focus of this talk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]