The Gulf of St. Lawrence is one of Canada's most complex marine systems, bordering on five provinces with 250,000 people living in proximity to the coast. At a time when the need for environmental sustainability has become urgent, managing the aquatic environment of this vast territory must consider not only biophysical processes but also human use, policy jurisdiction, and politics. Environmental Governance in the Gulf of St. Lawrence explores the politics of environmental action and policy in an area that has been the homeland of Indigenous peoples for millennia and part of Euro-Canadian life for centuries. The authors reverse the conventional view of the region as simply a passage between ocean and interior by focusing on the coastal margin and deepwater Gulf as a system. A series of distinct policy studies covers topics such as marine infrastructure, fisheries, offshore petroleum, coastal zones, marine transport, aquaculture, large ocean management, protected areas, and Indigenous governance. They examine each semi-autonomous field of environmental action within a geopolitical context, before comparing them as parts of an integrated whole, with the goal of understanding the management of this vital region.

This yields a picture of polycentric politics, where environmental policy subnetworks interact. Building on this, Environmental Governance poses questions about possible reform agendas.