Key institutions where professional ecologists and environmental scientists (EESs) can play vital roles, alongside major stakeholders with whom they engage. The diagram also includes the environment, which is not a stakeholder, but a critical factor influencing and influenced by these interactions. Arrows represent simplified directions of interaction for clarity, highlighting pathways through which ecologists and environmental scientists contribute to and collaborate with these entities. Blue represents interactions with key institutions and stakeholders, while green represents interactions with the environment. The term topics here can represent themes for research either defined from a funding agency to those based on local knowledge.