Improving how science informs policy within the Ecosystem Approach

Science is fundamental to sound policies, particularly when it comes to implementing an Ecosystem Approach. Science can and should inform nearly all facets of an Ecosystem Approach, yet challenges remain to realizing this goal. To help identify and better understand these challenges we used a qualitative comparative case study approach to identify and characterize the challenges and successes of implementing a science-driven Ecosystem Approach in the Laurentian Great Lakes. These case studies include delisting of Areas of Concern, improving coastal resilience, and addressing declining offshore lake productivity. These case studies were selected because they provide a set of very different, yet complementary, cases for assessing implementation, as well as the factors influencing the science-policy exchange. Through this comparative study, we identified a diverse set of challenges and successes, that were both systemic and case specific. Emerging from this comparative assessment were principles and enabling conditions (e.g. scale, governance, shared goals) we believe are critical to consider when establishing or improving a science-driven Ecosystem Approach.