The Andean region is environmentally, culturally and socially highly diverse. This is a challenge for consistent policy-making for sustainability, but also an opportunity offering different solutions for current socio-environmental problems. In this essay, we discuss the science-policy interface, focusing on environmental policy-making. We suggest that instead of a gap between science and policy that needs to be bridged, there is a dynamic landscape of different knowledge realms and interests influencing the policy-making.
A genuine dialogue between these realms can lead to societal learning and transformation towards sustainability. Learning from diversity, including indigenous knowledge and creativity, makes the Andes, and the whole of Latin America, a unique environment.