Societal, policy and academic ‘visions’ for the future of the marine environment and its management, exemplified in the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland.

Interactions between environmental and social change are complex and require deepinsights into human perceptions, values, motivations and choices. Humanities disciplines can bringthese insights to the study of marine social–ecological systems in the context of global environmentalchallenges. Such systems can be defined on a range of scales, but the cases most easily studied includethose of small islands and their communities. This paper presents findings from three studies in theWestern and Northern isles of Scotland, concentrating on some of the processes involved in socialsustainability that contribute on the one hand to protecting what a community has, and on the otherhand allowing a community to evolve so as to adapt to new conditions. It relates the several sorts oftransformations involved, to the role and impact of external institutions such as those of governanceof the natural environment, the energy market, and academic research, which together make up theenvironment of the transformation. By examining the world-views of different groups of actors, thispaper illustrates that an understanding of the mental constructs underlying these world-views canhelp marine governance through integrating different ways of knowing. This paper identifies where itwould be useful to employ a transdisciplinary ‘translator’ or a ‘space’ for dialogue in order to capturethe diverse ‘visions’ and perceptions that these groups have in relation to management of the marineenvironment, where there are synergies and where more should to be done to negotiate betweencompeting values and needs. It illustrates the practical contributions to operational policy that canemerge through challenging the dominant management discourses for the marine environment.