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In the face of growing pressures on the marine environment, evidence-based decision-making in the realm of marine conservation policies is of utmost importance. Through their boundary work, comprising the transfer of knowledge through the production of boundary objects and the facilitation of knowledge exchange, boundary organisations stand out as highly promising in bridging the gap between science and policymaking. However, so far, the research on knowledge exchange between marine scientists and policymakers as well as on boundary organisations in general is largely based on case studies in the Global North. This imbalance highlights the need to conduct studies on knowledge uptake in different geographical and political settings, with an increased focus on the Global South. By exploring the applicability of the current conceptual view on boundary organisations to the specific empirical reality of marine conservation in Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS), our research seeks to improve knowledge uptake in SIDS by identifying factors and strategies for successful boundary work in this context and to enrich the generic understanding of the role of boundary organisations with perspectives from the Global South. We conducted ten interviews with representatives from boundary organisations working on marine conservation in Pacific SIDS. Based on the findings, we developed a new framework for successful boundary work that is better adapted to realities in the Global South and reconceptualised the understanding of boundary work towards science-policy-community interfaces, emphasising that the gap between marine science and policymaking can only be bridged by engaging local communities and their knowledge. • There is limited research on boundary organisations working in the Global South. • We interview 10 boundary organisation representatives in Pacific SIDS. • Based on our analysis, we propose a new framework for successful boundary work. • Boundary work needs to include attention for local communities and their knowledge. • Hence, boundary work requires attention for science-policy-community interfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution, the study of the Bay of Brest ecosystem changes over the past 50 years is used to explore the construction of interdisciplinary knowledge and raise key questions that now need to be tackled at the science-policy-communities interface. The Bay of Brest is subject to a combination of several aspects of global change, including excessive nutrient inputs from watersheds and the proliferation of invasive species. These perturbations strongly interact, affecting positively or negatively the ecosystem functioning, with important impacts on human activities. We first relate a cascade of events over these five decades, linking farming activities, nitrogen, and silicon biogeochemical cycles, hydrodynamics of the Bay, the proliferation of an exotic benthic suspension feeder, the development of the Great scallop fisheries and the high biodiversity in maerl beds. The cascade leads to today's situation where toxic phytoplankton blooms become recurrent in the Bay, preventing the fishery of the great scallop and forcing the fishermen community to switch pray and alter the maerl habitat and the benthic biodiversity it hosts, despite the many scientific alerts and the protection of this habitat. In the second section, we relate the construction of the interdisciplinary knowledge without which scientists would never have been able to describe these changes in the Bay. Interdisciplinarity construction is described, first among natural sciences (NS) and then, between natural sciences and human and social sciences (HSS). We finally ask key questions at the science-policy interface regarding this unsustainable trend of the Bay: How is this possible, despite decades of joint work between scientists and fishermen? Is adaptive co-management a sufficient condition for a sustainable management of an ecosystem? How do the different groups (i.e., farmers, fishermen, scientists, environmentalists), with their diverse interests, take charge of this situation? What is the role of power in this difficult transformation to sustainability? Combining natural sciences with political science, anthropology, and the political sociology of science, we hope to improve the contribution of HSS to integrated studies of social-ecological systems, creating the conditions to address these key questions at the science-policy interface to facilitate the transformation of the Bay of Brest ecosystem toward sustainability.