In 2018, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) designated the Eastern Shore Islands of Nova Scotia as an Area of Interest (AOI) for Atlantic Canada’s largest coastal marine protected area (MPA) (Moreland et al., 2021). The Eastern Shore Islands (ESI) support vital ecosystems including eelgrass, kelp beds, and several at-risk species. While this […]
Advocacy and Political Action at the Information-Policy Interface
In a time when humanity faces existential threats from climate change and ecosystem collapse, the need for transformative change has never been more urgent. Now, more than ever, academics need to move beyond their traditional role as knowledge generators to become knowledge brokers and public activists to facilitate stronger evidence-informed decision making (Gardner et al., […]
Enabling the Uptake of Research in Decision Making
Effective policy and decision-making rely on the integration of scientific evidence into governance frameworks. In this post, we explore the role that research-based information can play in shaping environmental policy. Translating research into actionable knowledge for policymakers faces many challenges due to persistent knowledge-action gaps. Gaps occur when knowledge that is produced is difficult to […]
The Role of International Statutes in Policy-Making
Global environmental governance has long played a significant role in how environmental policy becomes enacted around the world. In this blog post, we discuss the role of international environmental bodies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and the United Nations Convention to Combat […]
Weaving Ways of Knowing in Evidence-Based Policy and Decision-Making
Inclusion of diverse knowledge systems at science-policy interfaces is crucial for effective evidence-based policy and decision-making, especially on substantive matters such as environmental management, sustainability, and climate change. In this post, we explore the concept of weaving ways of knowing to highlight the importance of combining different forms of knowledge—western science, Indigenous, local, and experiential—to […]
New Paper: Identifying Ocean-Related Literature Using the UN Second World Ocean Assessment Report
Proclaimed in 2017, the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) sparked opportunities to advance ocean-related fields and identify solutions to potential knowledge gaps, especially at the interface of research and governance. In a paper recently published in Ocean & Society, we explored the potential of using the references included in the two-volume […]
Can Schoolchildren Contribute to Research and Policy-making Through Citizen Science?
Science education is an integral part of the curriculum of many schools, yet how science actually works and how new knowledge is produced is rarely covered in their courses. School books and experiments with a pre-determined outcome and defined solution do not reflect the actual work of researchers, which involves trial and error, dealing with […]
From Water Pollution Studies to Legislation and Regulatory Action: Celebrating 50 Years of Contributions of the Canadian Ecotoxicity Workshop
What can a half century of research achieve? This question was top of mind at the fiftieth Canadian Ecotoxicity Workshop (previously the Aquatic Toxicity Workshop), sponsored by the University of Waterloo, on 6-9 October 2024 in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. This series of meetings began in the 1970s directly after the formation of the federal government department, […]
Dynamics of Information Flow at the Science-Policy Interface for Endangered Inner Bay of Fundy Atlantic Salmon
Once an aquatic species is added to Canada’s list of endangered flora and fauna under the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA), does the best available information make its way into decision-making to promote the recovery of the species? Resource management, including the management of endangered species, can be challenging due to the involvement of […]
Book Review: Securitizing Marine Protected Areas: Geopolitics, Environmental Justice, and Science by Elizabeth De Santo
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are widely considered to be the best tool to protect ocean biodiversity. Generally speaking, an MPA is an area of the “ocean set aside for long-term conservation aims” (IUCN, 2017), although many other types of ocean protection fall into this category, including marine reserves, marine sanctuaries, or marine parks, all of […]