Enabling conditions and challenges to environmental assessment as a tool for knowledge brokerage: lessons from Nunavut

ABSTRACT Knowledge brokering is a process of communication and interaction aimed at knowledge exchange and learning between parties with different knowledge bases This paper examines knowledge brokering in Arctic environmental assessment (EA) as a mechanism to support learning, build capacity, and sharing power. The study assessed enabling conditions and challenges to knowledge brokering in the eastern Canadian Arctic under the Nunavut EA process, managed by the Nunavut Impact Review Board. Methods included focus groups and review of legislation, process documents, and EA guidance to examine how the regulatory environment and Board’s EA process support knowledge brokering. Results illustrate that if EA is to support knowledge brokering, it should focus not only on communities but also on EA institutions – those that directly enable and support knowledge brokering, and those that provide ancillary information and have important regulatory roles. Enabling EA as a platform for brokering knowledge also requires investment beyond that provided through project-by-project funding models. While many jurisdictions are catching up to EA systems in Canada’s Arctic, and learning how to incorporate best-practices for Indigenous engagement and knowledge sharing, Nunavut’s co-managed process offers a model and learning opportunities for exploring the implementation conditions necessary for effective knowledge brokering through EA.