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This special issue provides insight into global conservation science by analyzing a 5-year, $12.5 million global marine conservation science and policy program that included over 50 studies in four priority regions involving over 100 scientists and numerous partners. In doing so, it provides reflections on critical challenges for any conservation science program that is intended to inform policymaking, including how to (1) ensure that science process and products influence conservation actions, (2) build global learning from a network of site-based projects, (3) strengthen in-region capacity, and (4) manage relationships across scales among scientists, conservationists, headquarters, and field-based staff. Information is presented on the development and progress of the program as a whole in addition to specific articles covering each of four focal geographic areas: Belize, Brazil, the Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape, and Fiji.

As anthropogenic stressors on marine environments increase, the translation of marine science into beneficial policy outcomes becomes ever more crucial. International environmental nongovernmental organizations, with linkages to both the scientific community and the worlds of policy at multiple scales, are ideally situated to cross this science- policy boundary. This article uses the experiences of Conservation International's Marine Management Area Science program (MMAS) in Brazil as a case study of the development and application of science to policy. Qualitative data about MMAS in Brazil was gathered as part of a multi-sited ethnographic research project, with methods including document analysis, direct observation and semi-structured interviews. Findings indicate that Conservation International in Brazil informed and drove policy by (1) designing scientific studies to be both locally and globally salient,(2) ensuring participation of key stakeholders during the entire research cycle, (3) communicating understandable results to disparate audiences, and (4) building a political constituency for policy changes. Organizations wishing to translate science into policy must have a comprehensive research planning, data collection and analysis, and result dissemination process that pays heed to the aforementioned elements.

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