The growing extent and pace of ecological declines in the oceans (e.g., reduced fish stocks, pollution, climate change) are ultimately a crisis of governance. Because marine ecological dynamics and societal well-being are integrally linked, managing these resources sustainably is crucial for stemming the decline of biodiversity, ensuring long-term food security, and enhancing human quality of life. Most management successes occur at local scales, for example, where a community self-organizes to impose rules. Scaling up these successes is necessary to make a difference at ecologically relevant scales. However, this requires understanding the conditions that facilitate effective local governance and the mechanisms by which such governance can be scaled up. Similarly, large-scale processes and mechanisms can facilitate sustainable resource management regionally and locally, such as international treaties, national laws, policies, and regional conservation visions. Novel research on governance at multiple scales in marine social-ecological systems is providing insight into the following: factors that influence successful fisheries co-management arrangements; how one country (Chile) has turned around its marine governance; application of theory of transformation of social-ecological systems to a complicated international setting (the Coral Triangle); and how regional planning and local action can be linked to strive toward marine conservation outcomes.