Social Indicators Report
The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition (the Coalition) is developing an inclusive, and more broadly representative, vision for engaging and investing in ecosystem restoration and revitalization within the Great Lakes region. Top Coalition goals are to maintain the nation’s commitment to Great Lakes restoration and protection, to ratchet up federal investment, and to ensure that the communities most impacted by pollution and harm are prioritized in the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. While the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative has been a successful program, it can be strengthened through: a greater community-based focus of investments on local conservation priorities; the agencies being held accountable to this focus; and, ultimately, all communities within the region benefitting from Great Lakes and clean water investments.
The Coalition’s intention is to broaden the narrative of Great Lakes environmental programs beyond the traditional focus on biological and physical dimensions of the ecosystem, to also recognizing and addressing social and organizational dimensions. To catalyze this change, the Coalition seeks foundational, social science- evidence-based insights to advance its work to broaden Great Lakes restoration, community resilience, and other ecosystem-based environmental programs across a broad spectrum of governmental agencies and non-governmental entities (e.g., US Congress, US federal agencies, Tribal and First Nations and Métis, state and provincial agencies, foundations, grassroots organizations, and concerned individuals).
The authors offer this report in response to the call from the Coalition, as the social- and related-sciences evidence for: (1) broadening the conceptual foundation for Great Lakes restoration to better consider the needs and capacity of the individuals, communities, and agencies who can drive and contribute to local programs; and, who potentially benefit from and then assume long-term stewardship of, environmental restoration efforts; (2) methods and approaches to operationalize recognition of the agency (e.g., power and choice) and claims of traditionally marginalized communities; and (3) strategic, implementable recommendations for effective local-scale program delivery; in a format that serves as both a public-facing, informational document, and a guide for decision-makers and practitioners.
The Social Indicators Report was an outcome of the May 2023 Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR) hosted summit/workshop: Discerning the “Bricks and Mortar” Required to Implement the Societal Components of Comprehensive Great Lakes Restoration.
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Use the buttons below to skip to different sections of this report. The full report can be read on the US Environmental Protection Agency’s website.
Executive Summary
A notable transformation is occurring across the US, Canada, and the globe, reframing “ecosystem restoration” as more than technical actions that improve the environment, but also as collective actions that explicitly acknowledge and include the human and social systems that coexist with biophysical systems. There is also increasing attention directed towards involving local communities in regional landscape restoration and conservation for both planning and long-term stewardship, to help ensure that ecosystems and their component communities are more resilient in the face of increasingly challenging stressors (e.g., legacy contamination, climate change effects, severe weather, and economic instability).
The Great Lakes region is experiencing this sea change, having made significant (and continuing) progress towards addressing legacy biophysical contamination and now transitioning to adapt to a 21st century knowledge economy, where community access to nature and agency (e.g., power and choice) are increasingly important. This involves working to address long term social impairments resulting from historical and ongoing injustices experienced by Black and Brown communities, Indigenous communities, and other peoples.
Exceptional recent federal investments are expected to complete most planned environmental remediation and restoration projects in Great Lakes Areas of Concern within the coming decade. However, researchers and practitioners are finding that social and organizational dimensions of community revitalization must be integrated into environmental restoration work throughout its life cycle to realize the full social-environmental benefits of these investments. This awareness, plus a growing recognition of the importance of relationships, has led to a need to better reinforce and document success stories so that this type of change can be implemented more systematically and on the appropriate scale and timeline.
Therefore, this report provides:
an expanded science-, knowledge-, and practice-based narrative for Great Lakes Restoration that includes emphasis on community revitalization (i.e., increasing community agency and vitality, and fostering equity), based on integrated socio-ecological visions for the region; and
a set of prioritized implementation strategies to facilitate the systemization of this work.
The group identified factors that enable and constrain progress towards the desired outcomes. These factors represented the groups’ collective understanding of the relevant social conditions and dynamics of the Great Lakes system based on their experience and expertise. This experience and expertise likewise informed subsequent development of a list of activities and strategies. To reduce repetition and improve clarity, the list of activities and strategies were consolidated to remove duplicates and analyzed to identify themes. Repeated enabling themes included: authentic engagement with communities, supporting increased capacity for important components (e.g., boundary spanning organizations, awareness, and diverse local economies) of implementing these changes, the importance of community stories, and access to public green and blue spaces. Repeated constraining themes included: a lack of capacity and technical resources, structural racism, and a mismatch between the time scale of projects and the timelines required for building trust.
Most identified activities and strategies supported multiple desired outcomes, while some supported only one. Priority activities and strategies represented a range of themes, including: capacity building (i.e., increased capacity for communities to identify and achieve their goals); administrative culture shift (i.e., change in the culture of granting to ease the burden on applicants); place-based relationships with Tribal and First Nations and Métis and local communities; new progress metrics; and strengthening Great Lakes values, outreach, education, and stories. Participants felt strongly that it is a requirement to spend significant time and resources on relationship and trust building, program planning, and building capacity for communities to fully participate in remediation and restoration programs. Furthermore, these activities should be recognized by funding and implementing entities as critically important.
Each SMARTIE recommendation includes an overarching strategic recommendation, followed by multiple, tactical actions to implement the recommendations. The six sets of strategic SMARTIE recommendations that were identified can be summarized as follows:
1. Improve collaborative social infrastructure by strengthening boundary spanning organizations;
2. Broaden the scope of environmental education through investments in local narrative infrastructure;
3. Provide institutional support and funding for Indigenous stewardship methods, concepts, and practices with co-development of metrics;
4. Co-develop core social values related to the Great Lakes;
5. Create space within Great Lakes programs to better consider community dimensions and invest in community capacity; and
6. Invest in the research and practice of developing quantitative and qualitative human and environmental well-being indicators and metrics.
Through this process we produced a rich, in-depth agenda that includes practical, immediate, and long-term steps that are bold and far reaching. These steps have the potential to build space and capacity for communities to exercise their agency in choosing their futures, as well as change the narrative of the roles of communities and governments in the remediation and restoration of ecosystems — a narrative that contributes to not only ecosystem resilience but also to community resilience. This agenda provides government agencies, organizations, and individuals with tools to not only improve environmental quality, but to also repair social relationships that were damaged at the same time our ecosystems were degraded during the intensive industrial era.
We also identified aspirational values that were overarching across desired outcomes and important to any activity or strategy. These ‘metaprinciples’ include: Tribal sovereignty, justice and equity, adaptive management, and robust infrastructure to recognize multiple ways of knowing. They are important because environmental restoration that actively considers community values has more potential for communities to realize the potential benefits of the remediation and restoration.
Finally, we recognize the importance of harnessing this moment in time, a point when there is a convergence of catalysts including both historic and novel funding opportunities, and an increasing awareness of the importance of prioritizing social systems in these restoration efforts. There are both external opportunities to grow these practices (e.g., novel funding opportunities) and a strong internal interest among agencies, academic institutions, and NGOs to more deeply engage with and integrate community into ongoing projects (e.g., knowledge co-production), develop ‘Centers of Excellence’ that can serve these communities, and build and support a working community of practice of social science scholars working in Great Lakes spaces. We have the potential to write a future where we see that humans are part of the ecosystem, not as stressors, but as protagonists building a vibrant, sustainable, and equitable future for Great Lakes coastal communities.
Introduction
Evolving Approaches to Great Lakes Clean-Up
Remediation and restoration of the Great Lakes ecosystem has been an important endeavor for over fifty years. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) between Canada and the United States has involved a series of binational agreements that addressed priority water quality threats in timely fashion. The first GLWQA of 1972 was targeted at cleaning up Lake Erie (Canada and United States 1972). The Agreement was so successful that a subsequent GLWQA was signed in 1978 (Canada and United States 1978). These two agreements are significant and similar, but also have a notable difference. The first GLWQA was based on a regulatory approach and resulted in reduced amounts of phosphorus entering Lake Erie with a goal of biophysical ecosystem rehabilitation. The second GLWQA, and subsequent 1987 amendments, featured (instead) an ecosystem approach (see box) to address not only discharges into the lake, but to remediate legacy contamination in the sediments and address habitat loss that resulted from industrialization (Canada and United States 1987).
The ecosystem approach endeavors to consider the biological, chemical, and physical dimensions of the ecosystem, while considering humans part of the system (Vallentyne and Beeton 1998).
Despite these agreements, Great Lakes clean-up activity has waxed and waned, leading to an overall lack of progress in significantly improving lake health. As a result, in 2005, a team of scientists and advocates drafted a white paper called, “Prescription for Great Lakes Ecosystem Protection and Restoration, Avoiding the Tipping Point of Irreversible Changes (Bails et al. 2005).” This paper was important because it outlined how the Great Lakes had experienced human-induced stressors and created urgency, as we had only a short time to control the sources to prevent ecosystems from reaching a tipping point. It also described conditions of the Great Lakes ecosystem and reflected the new ecosystem approach by considering the biological, chemical, and physical dimensions of the ecosystem. The report outline “symptoms” of stressor-related ecosystem breakdown that included loss of native species, gain of aquatic invasive species, coastline degradation, wetland loss, general water quality degradation, and widespread reproductive failure of important fish species (i.e., sturgeon, lake trout, and lake herring). The “diagnosis” was to restore habitats, remediate sediments, protect functioning ecosystems, and measure ecosystem health based on “agreed upon integrative indicators.” This paper was endorsed by over 200 scientists and has led to a cleaner Great Lakes overall as it provided powerful evidence to support federal policy, i.e., the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
Unfortunately, the Prescription Paper mostly considered humans as source of stress. This view is starting to change, as scholars are reflecting on the history of remediation and restoration in the Great Lakes and better understand the roles that governmental agencies, grassroots and environmental nongovernmental organizations, and individuals play (and need to play) in the clean-up and reclamation of formerly industrial (I.e., contaminated) spaces to improve human and community well-being (Williams et al. 2022). What we need is an expanded framework that embraces how people are agents of change and beneficiaries of remediation and restoration, with relationships to these restored and revitalized places.
Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM, see glossary) broadens ecosystem management to strengthen emphasis on social goals and dynamics, within a holistic, coupled human-environment system (see glossary) approach. Several key elements of EBM outlined by Christensen et al. (1996) align with the outcomes of this report, including:
Focus on intergenerational system sustainability;
Recognition that complexity and connectedness provide long-term resilience;
Recognition that humans exist within ecosystems, and that bio-physical and human societal goals must both be incorporated in management visions; and
Current management must be viewed as hypotheses to be continually tested by research and monitoring.
While Great Lakes biophysical remediation and restoration efforts are a critical component of EBM implementation, current goals and programs are biophysically centered and not holistic in addressing the coupled hydro-social system (see glossary). Program goals must expand to encompass social systems and realize the full form of EBM. This aligns with the Indigenous perspective of ecosystem stewardship, or Wise Practice. According to Muir et al. (2023), “(i)n contrast, wise practices require people involved in a collaboration, partnership or engagement to be fully engaged in a holistic way, drawing on experience, knowledge, and deep understanding of a given situation to make decisions based on wisdom. Wise practices, in other words, are about the people, their insights, intuition, lived experience, nuance, time, ethics, knowledge of their values and priorities.”
This evolution from regulatory approaches to the ecosystem approach to EBM is an important progression in the Great Lakes region. The ecosystem approach created space for local involvement. This local involvement and place attachment catalyzed and channeled activism towards environmental change. Furthermore, the ecosystem approach closed the distance between federal and local agencies, as well as local organizations. EBM now offers a broadened, holistic framework for Great Lakes communities to lead revitalization grounded in ecosystem remediation and restoration based on their values and visions.
Both Environmental and Social Change
A notable transformation is occurring to reframe "ecosystem restoration” as not only improving the environment, but also including the human and social systems that co-exist with biophysical systems; this is especially critical along coastlines; zones where land, river, sea, people, and wildlife converge. In coastal communities, ecosystem services (see glossary) and stressors are more dramatic and co-located, and attachment to water draws people closer. This broader conceptualization of ecosystems as coupled human-environment or hydro-social systems is (re-)emerging across the US, Canada, and the globe. At the same time, there is increasing attention directed towards involving local communities in regional landscape restoration and conservation, both for robust, comprehensive planning, and long-term, durable stewardship. The intended result is to make ecosystems and their component communities more resilient in the face of increasingly challenging acute and long-term stressors, such as legacy contamination, climate change, pandemics, and economic instability.
This transformation is playing out in the Great Lakes hydro-social system, where the region is restructuring to adapt to a 21st Century knowledge economy, in which community access to nature and place identity are increasingly important. The region’s industrial boom of the early- and mid-1900s was founded on its abundant coastal and freshwater ecosystem services. However, in recent decades Great Lakes coastal residents have been living with serious post-industrial, “Rust Belt” legacies, both environmental and social. The dominant environmental legacies are now well known as Areas of Concern (AOC), with numerous Beneficial Use Impairments (BUI): large areas of contaminated nearshore sediments, municipal shorelines dominated by decrepit and abandoned structures and properties, and degradation or loss of ecosystem services provided by coastal wetlands. Less recognized have been the social impairments typical of post-industrial coastal communities: historical, structural inequalities that impact lower income Black and Brown communities; dispossession of lands and livelihoods from Indigenous communities and Tribal and First Nations and Métis; and associated reductions in local community capacity (see glossary), agency (e.g., power and choice), standard of living, and well-being (Commission of the European Communities 2000).
The Great Lakes Areas of Concern Program: Foundation of Regional Remediation and Restoration Progress
Addressing AOCs has served as the foundation of the regional cleanup efforts, while also providing a structure that has established and sustained many relationships within the 43 affected communities as this program required implementing a consistent remedial action planning (RAP) process for each of the local ecosystems (Hartig et al. 2020).
To achieve formalization of local community participation, each RAP employed a local advisory council that were involved in identifying and describing the BUIs, and in evaluating project progress and eventual success. Each RAP identified specific, bio-physical, beneficial use impairments (BUI), needed remedial actions, responsible parties, and a remediation and restoration timeline. Efforts were intended to be adaptive, involving assessment and project re-adjustment as needed.
Although these advisory councils have varied in their effectiveness through time and across space (Voglesong-Zejnati 2019), they serve as the pioneering model for community engagement in the restoration process and offer an opportunity to build on these existing connections to change the narrative of restoration in the Great Lakes region. For example, the Milwaukee Community Advisory Council has recently undergone an incredible transformation (e.g., transitioning to a mix of people that reflect their community, who are paid for their work and trained on the material and can truly serve as a bridge between agencies and local communities) that could be implemented across all AOCs (Milwaukee Waterways Partnership 2023; https://cacmke.org/).
Improving the community dimensions of the AOC and other Great Lakes programs could also be a focus for one of the Centers of Excellence (proposed here and in the IJC decadal science strategy, see box in Conclusion). The Center could leverage and support these histories and relationships to more fully build out the social and community elements.
It is important to note that the injustices experienced in urban Black and Brown communities are not only historic relics but continue today. Historic federal redlining practices (see glossary) often devalued Black and Brown neighborhoods nearest to unhealthy industrial areas and this patterning persists today (Nardone et al. 2020; Garcia et al. 2021; Hendricks and VanZandt 2021; Porter 2022). Environmental melancholy is a condition where residents (across generations) struggle with the tension between awareness of immediate environmental degradation, contamination, and blight; and deep love for their homeplace (i.e., neighborhood and connection to the lakes and coasts (Lertzman 2012; Goralnik et al. 2022). Similarly, sovereignty of cultural traditions and stewardship practices of Indigenous people in the Great Lakes region were heavily restricted following treaties and other federal Indian policies (i.e., Dawes Act of 1887) that granted the US rights to timber, minerals, and land, while subsequent US policies criminalized spiritual practices and Indigenous languages. These impacts occurred despite the ongoing efforts of Tribal citizens and descendants to hunt, fish, gather, and practice traditional lifeways across the Ceded Territories (see glossary), especially in parts of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota where these rights were explicitly retained in accordance with the treaties of 1837, 1842, and 1854 (Ojibwe Treaty Rights; Schultz et al. 2022). Because of these conditions, not all have participated in, nor benefit equally from, current Great Lakes programs. Not all feel welcome in remediated and restored places, as community lived experiences might range from feeling out of place to actively unsafe (Porter 2022.). As a result of these broken relationships, local community members may not trust that the Great Lakes are being restored, or understand who is restoring them, and may believe the restoration is not for their community’s benefit (Dorman et al. 2023).
Exceptional investments (e.g., US federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI; 2010-present, see glossary)), and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021) have targeted the biophysical cleanups needed to address the devastating industrial legacy impacts. These programs are intended to accomplish completion of most major environmental remediation and restoration projects within the coming decade. However, to realize the full social-environmental benefits of these landmark regional investments, the social and organizational dimensions of community revitalization must be integrated into the environmental restoration work; and researchers are increasingly centering this integration throughout the lifecycle of the work. Research on community and Indigenous ecosystem values, collaborative decision-making, and the multiple values of place (see glossary) demonstrates that people can and must engage with Great Lakes clean-up at many points in the process – from project conception to implementation, to completion and benefit, and ultimately playing a long-term stewardship role. Such conscious linking of restoration and revitalization efforts is especially timely and synergistic considering recent US federal mandates to advance both environmental justice and climate change policies (e.g., Justice40, see glossary).
Within the region, there is growing recognition of the importance of attention to and relationships among local community needs, values, capacities, and agency. However, progress along these lines has been sporadic, occurring where novel funding has been piloted or a party is especially invested, principally where knowledgeable staff or community members drive project planning and development. There is a need to better reinforce and document these successes to ensure that this type of change can be implemented more systematically and comprehensively, per the appropriate scale (see glossary) and timeline. Therefore, this report provides:
An expanded science-, knowledge-, and practice-based narrative for Great Lakes Restoration that includes emphasis on community revitalization (agency, see glossary) and equity, based on integrated socio-ecological visions for the region; and
A set of prioritized implementation strategies to facilitate the systemization of this work.
Our objectives were to establish a theoretical framework, related potential activities and strategies, and an action agenda. We met these objectives by:
Convening experts in social science, co-production of knowledge, collaboration, governance, and community dynamics to brainstorm foundational change in achieving and tracking restoration in the Great Lakes;
Discerning a core list of desired social outcomes linked to ecosystem restoration; and
Centering social equity, as well as considering Indigenous sovereignty and knowledge systems (see glossary) in the process. In addition to the workshop products, we intend to foster enduring relationships among the diverse group of scientists, scholars, and thought leaders working on social systems throughout the region, including an intertribal treaty organization.
Methods
Gathering as Great Lakes Social Scholars
We gathered as a group of community-engaged scholars (Appendix A) in diverse areas of social sciences and community dynamics (Figure 1) to: (1) jointly develop concepts and recommendations through an expert elicitation workshop; and (2) then author this white paper. A three-person steering committee (i.e., Katie Williams, Katie Mika, and Paul Seelbach) designed the objectives and format of the workshop. This workshop was supported by NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR) and the Erb Family Foundation, as a 2-day “CIGLR Summit[1]” held on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, MI from May 17 to May 19, 2023. Participants included 25 community-engaged scholars, many from universities and some from boundary spanning organizations; and representing six Great Lakes states and provinces. Several participants are active Indigenous allies and others have experience partnering with Indigenous experts on projects[2]. Several additional scholars could not attend the workshop and served as report reviewers and contributors.
[1] Additional information on this 2023 workshop, and work products such as this white paper, can be found on the CIGLR website.
[2]There is a longer explanation of Indigenous participation in the discussion section.
Figure 1. Word cloud of the expertise of participants in the May 2023 workshop (participants listed in Appendix A).
Discerning Core Desired Social Outcomes Linked to Environmental Restoration; Identifying Potential Activities and Strategies; and Establishing an Action Plan
We used a participatory approach in this workshop to encourage all invitees to contribute their knowledges through open-ended exercises (e.g., sticky notes, discussion) that were captured and collectively refined throughout the two days. Our overarching workshop design employed a logic model that was developed based on Williams et al. (2022) to ground the discussions in the experience of Great Lakes remediation and restoration programs. The exercises were designed to guide the participants in the workshop to fill in the details of the logic model (Figure 2). To complete this model, we first brainstormed a set of desired social outcomes that are related to existing priority biophysical restoration outcomes (e.g., Focus Areas with the GLRI) using sticky notes at stations (Figure 3).
The results of the brainstorming were synthesized by the facilitators into five desired social outcomes and affirmed by the participants (facilitators reviewed the synthesized outcomes with participants and provided an opportunity for comments or edits). Desired outcomes served as anchors to focus subsequent discussions of enabling and constraining factors and steps to take in response. After the whole group identified desired outcomes, breakout groups of four to six people (selected by workshop organizers to maximize diversity of expertise within groups) discussed and created lists of the factors that enabled or constrained progress towards the desired outcomes (Appendix B; these were recorded by facilitators on flip charts). Then, groups created lists of activities and strategies to progress towards the desired social outcomes in response to the enabling and constraining factors. The lists of activities and strategies were captured on flip charts, synthesized to remove duplicates, and categorized according to themes to facilitate voting. Participants each had five votes for over 80 potential activities and strategies. The result of the vote was a prioritized list of the top 11 (Appendix D).
Figure 2. Logic model used in our workshop. Arrows denote the logical relationships. We first established desired social outcomes (Workshop Step 1), then discerned driving factors and related activities and strategies (Workshop Step 2). We then developed top activities and strategies that accelerate progress towards the identified outcomes (Workshop Step 3). These were then developed into SMARTIE recommendations.
Figure 3. Brainstorming desired social outcomes.
Based on ranked activities and strategies, participants began to synthesize a set of priority, implementable SMARTIE (Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Relevant or Realistic, Timebound, Inclusive, Equitable) recommendations (The Management Center n.d.). After the workshop, the leadership team further refined the SMARTIE recommendations. The set of recommendations were intended to address multiple desired social outcomes; the outcomes anchored our logically sequential discussions, but we did not develop specific recommendations for specific outcomes. Each SMARTIE recommendation included both strategic and tactical components; the nested tactical elements were the specific, implementable actions. We concluded the workshop with a discussion of how to develop and maintain a social sciences community of practice (see glossary) focused on Great Lakes community well-being; to create a space for collaboration and foster this work across the region.
Results
Desired Social Outcomes
We distilled brainstormed social goals into five desired social outcomes for the Great Lakes region, these together capturing the top priorities for including social and environmental dimensions as integral components of future Great Lakes ecosystem-based management efforts (Table 1). Overarching themes of these outcomes included:
Considering and embedding equity and multiple ways of knowing into environmental decision processes;
Recognizing that environmental and social benefits of policies, programs, and projects are based on the contextual realities of local places;
Facilitating communities' agency to adapt to environmental and social systemic challenges (e.g., climate change or economic instability);
Supporting communities’ connection to the environmental and social benefits of their particular place; and
Assuring communities’ participation in multi-scale, equitable governance processes in which their voices carry weight.
Table 1. Core desired social outcomes that align with Great Lakes ecosystem-based management programs, as identified by workshop participants.
Social Outcome 1. Restoration and revitalization actions explicitly contribute to equitable human well-being. This may include: providing consistent access to safe and affordable potable water; providing access (e.g., geographic, economic, socio-cultural, psycho-social) to blue and green spaces that are safe; catalyzing economic opportunities; supporting public health; and supporting and leveraging community assets.
Social Outcome 4. Restoration and revitalization actions and investments are contextual to place. Program actions reflect unique local physical, social, and cultural aspects.
Social Outcome 2. Communities are prepared, and receive support, for ongoing adaptation to change. At all jurisdictional scales, communities have skills, knowledge, resources (e.g., human and natural), and power to adapt and thrive in the face of change.
Social Outcome 5. Environmental programs actively build a multigenerational and multicultural stewardship ethic. This respects "all our relations," identities, and roles "in a good way."
Social Outcome 3. Multi-scale, equitable governance processes are operating. These processes should: give communities agency; be inclusive, transparent, credible, and legitimate; be informed by multiple ways of knowing; and be responsive to local contextual and systemic changes.
“All our Relations” and “In a Good Way”
We recognize the Indigenous concepts of ‘All our relations’ and ‘in a good way’ have an immense depth that cannot be appropriately represented in the scope of this paper, and so we would encourage readers to explore the literature by Indigenous scholars (e.g., Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples and Margaret Kovach’s Indigenous methodologies: Characteristics, conversations, and contexts) to obtain a greater understanding of the concepts. Further, we acknowledge the diversity of Indigenous worldviews and we are conscious not to pan-Indigenize in our use of these terms. Below, we share two descriptions of these concepts from around the Great Lakes region as to provide some examples.
In the Anishinaabe language, "All our relations" is expressed as "Indinawemaaganidog", which is a fundamental understanding of acknowledging of the interconnectedness and relatedness of all things, animate and inanimate, from a spiritual perspective. "Indinawemaaganidog" is a formal greeting to acknowledge one another as human beings as well as to acknowledge our 'more-than-human' relatives in the natural world. Also, in the Anishinaabe language, "In a good way" is expressed as "weweni sa go" and is used to affirm walking a good path in life. "Minobimaadiziwin" is a noun expressing "The good life", which is the end result of our cultural and traditional lifeways. When the wild rice is abundant, when the deer are plentiful, when our traditional foods and water are consumable, when our children are healthy and happy, we know that we have achieved "the good life." "Minobimaadiziwin" is similar to "good stewardship," although like the term 'management', 'stewardship' still reflects a top-down orientational relationship, whereas, "Indinawemaaganidog" acknowledges all living beings as equals; thus, we are "good relatives" from an Anishinaabe understanding, while we are also "good stewards" from a western science perspective."
From the Cree perspective, “'All our relations”', sometimes referred to as “'Wahkohtowin”' (Cree: “'kinship”'), is a fundamental understanding of the interconnected and interdependent relationships (e.g., biophysical, spiritual, and cultural, etc.) among between all things. Part of this understanding is recognizing that everything is related in an equally respected way (view the Native Counselling Services of Alberta's film, The Sacred Relationship, which centers the concept of Wahkohtowin on our relationships with fresh water). “'In a good way”' in Cree refers to a genuine and respectful intent to act in support of, and aspire to, 'Mino-Bimaadiziwin' (Ojibwe: 'the Good Life') (Rheault 1999; Debassige 2010; Turtle Mountain Community College n.d.) in the ways in which we understand, work with, and respect one another as we pursue water stewardship. Stewardship differs greatly from management in its worldview in that it is not human-centric, it is not based on our interpretation of the value(s) of the ecosystem, and it does not place us in an external “'intervenor”' role, as management does.
Factors that Enable or Constrain Progress Toward Outcomes
Enabling and constraining factors identified for each of the five desired social outcomes were not explicit workshop products, but rather represented the groups’ collective understanding of relevant social conditions and dynamics of the Great Lakes system, based on their experience and expertise, in relation to each of the five desired outcomes. This work set the stage for subsequent brainstorming sessions focused on activities and strategies to achieve the desired social outcomes. Although the enabling and constraining factors were created to speak to a specific desired social outcome, it is important to note that some enabling or constraining conditions were repeated across more than one outcome.
Repeated enabling themes[3]
Authentic engagement with, and integration of, communities’ multiple viewpoints and knowledges
Growing: boundary spanning organizations (see glossary), awareness of interdisciplinary partnerships and co-production, corporate interest in and knowledge of natural solutions, and diverse local economies
Importance of access to, valuing, and caring for public green and blue spaces
Importance of community stories, and their distribution, to social cohesion
Repeated constraining themes
Capacity: finance, governance, and staffing are not consistent across communities; and support for community capacity is likewise uneven or lacking
Lack of technical resources; and access to local legacies of history, stories, knowledge, and multiple ways of knowing
Mismatch between timescales of projects compared to timelines required for building trust among and with community members
Pervasive structural racism limits community benefits of government restoration and revitalization programs
[3] The enabling themes were identified by the workshop organizers as part of the development of this report. The themes represent ideas that were repeated in multiple breakout groups.
Developing Suggested Activities and Strategies into SMARTIE Recommendations
Workshop participants brainstormed and prioritized a set of implementable activities and strategies (Appendix C) or steps we can take to strengthen the emphasis on social dimensions within Great Lakes ecosystem-based management programs. These activities and strategies arose through our discussions of how to achieve the five desired social outcomes, but they did not directly map onto the five outcomes. They were prioritized through voting (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Example of dot voting to prioritize activities and strategies. Workshop participants were each given 5 stickers to place next to their top priorities. Participants could choose 5 different activities or place more than one sticker on activities that were their top priority.
Many identified activities and strategies support multiple outcomes, while some support only one. Priority activities and strategies represented a range of themes, including: capacity building (i.e., increased capacity for communities to identify and achieve their goals); administrative culture shift (i.e., change in the culture of granting to ease the burden on applicants); place-based relationships with Tribal and First Nations and Métis and local communities; new progress metrics; and strengthening values, outreach, education, and stories. Participants felt strongly that it is a requirement to spend significant time and resources on relationship and trust building, collaboration, program planning, and building capacity for communities to fully participate in remediation and restoration programs. Furthermore, these activities should be recognized by funding and implementing entities as critically important.
Priority activities and strategies from the workshop were condensed and reorganized by the steering committee into six sets of activities and strategies that provide SMARTIE recommendations for ready implementation into existing frameworks (Table 2).
Table 2. Our six recommended sets of activities and strategies; only the strategic, overarching titles are provided here. See text for full details.
Each of the six activity and strategy sets contains multiple recommendations. For each set we identified:
An overarching strategic recommendation, followed by a series of tactical (i.e., operational) recommendations;
The actors and entities who might implement each recommendation, where applicable;
The potential progress metrics for each recommendation, where applicable; and
An initiation timeline for each recommendation.
Because of the complexities of some actions and the multitude of ways that actors may participate, we did not identify an implementing entity for every recommendation. For example, there may be actions that could be implemented by the government or, community organizations may implement ideas, while supported by foundations. We have included a table of actors who may participate in the remediation-restoration-revitalization process, to facilitate the recognition of the different roles - and inspire readers to act as they see fit (Appendix C). Brackets following each recommendation denote our suggested implementation timeline; implementation could start as indicated or at any future point. Lastly, there is a chart to visualize implementation for each set of recommendations with arrows. The arrow length indicates the time it would take to ramp up and implement the recommendation; most activities will continue past the point where the arrow ends.
Activities and Strategies Set #1
Improve collaborative social infrastructure by strengthening: boundary-spanning organizations, resources for knowledge co-production, trust-building, and social cohesion.
Bolster staffing within NGOs and other boundary-spanning organizations to strengthen collaborative skills including: recruiting and retaining, convening, facilitating (i.e., process management), translating, mediating (e.g., conflict resolution and political de-escalation), grant finding, and grant writing (Meadows et al., 2015).
Prioritize and normalize equitable hiring (see glossary) of people with collaborative skills in environmental agencies and organizations, to contribute to Great Lakes programs. Equitable hiring should reflect the diversity of actors in Great Lakes communities. [Implement immediately]
Facilitate delivery of community and professional workshops on collaboration, facilitation, and building inclusive partnerships skills. For example, regular workshops at HOW, IAGLR, or other existing annual gatherings, using EPA or other teaching tools (USEPA 2023) [Implement immediately]
Partner with state Sea Grant offices, state coastal management offices, or similar organizations (e.g., regional planning organizations, multidimensional environmental organizations, land grant extension, universities, or conservation authorities) to leverage their collaborative capacities for working directly with local communities on Great Lakes programs. Provide those organizations with funding to do more of this work. [Years 1-2]
Fund staff with collaborative skills within boundary organizations, to work directly with local communities on Great Lakes programs and organizations to develop their capacity for building relationships with, and support for, local communities. For example, internal training in conflict resolution, process management, convening, facilitation, translation, and mediation. [Year 1 identify programs and needs; Year 2-3 for implementation]
Partner with IJC Water Quality Board and Science Advisory Board to explore the development of Centers of Excellence[4] or a community of practice for boundary spanning and collaborative processes; such a Center would include both research and experiments in trust building, social cohesion, and environmental leadership (i.e., conflict resolution and collaborative facilitation). These Centers should include shared learning spaces for communities, capacity building for organizational development (i.e., grant writing and planning), and initiation and nurturing of network development (i.e. who should be involved and how to expand). The most effective Center would be a site for: applied research; experiments for applying research to practice; supporting practitioners (i.e., with grant researching and writing); and training for scientists, agencies, and communities to jointly engage with this research. [Year 1 to develop framework; Years 2-5 for implementation]
[4] ‘Centers of Excellence’ are included, along with research infrastructure, as the 5th fundamental priority of the IJC’s 2022 Great Lakes Science Strategy for the Next Decade.
SMARTIE #1: Improving Collaborative Infrastructure
Figure 5. SMARTIE Set #1: Improving Collaborative Infrastructure - implementation timelines for recommendations. Prioritizing equitable hiring and community and professional workshops can be implemented immediately. Leveraging collaborative capacity can be implemented over the first two years. Funding collaborative staffing skills within boundary organizations might take a year for framing and then can be implemented. Developing the scope for a Center of Excellence may take about one year and then several years for implementation.
Activities and Strategies Set #2
Broaden the scope of environmental education (i.e., per GLRI Focus Area 5 – Foundations for Future Restoration Actions or IJC’s 2022 Great Lakes Science Strategy for the Next Decade) through investment in narrative infrastructure to foster community engaged, cross-cultural, cross-generational, experiential learning about Great Lakes ecosystems and our relationships to them.
Such infrastructure would:
Spotlight local models, case studies, stories, and champions;
Elevate local, place-based wisdom, storytelling, and identity; and
Enhance awareness and knowledge of ecosystems and place.
It would also promote care about place, understanding of environmental issues, potential for societal change and adaptation to acute and long-term stressors, capacity for collaborative action, and conditions to further social justice.
Narrative infrastructure
The term Narrative Infrastructure refers to the many channels of storytelling, formal and formal, that contribute to the sense of place, identity, and belonging in a community. Shared stories about past and current events circulate through families, extended social networks, journalistic outlets, civic events, and public programs arranged, for example, by museums, libraries, and universities. For people to care about a specific location requires that they know and appreciate what happened -- and continues to happen -- there. Investments in narrative infrastructure, then, increase opportunities, for residents and visitors alike, to forge meaningful connections with place and cultivate attitudes of civic and environmental stewardship.
Support funding and hosting of professional development and support for teachers; expanding their capacity for engaging with multiple ways of understanding, knowing, and relating with the ecosystem and local communities (e.g., teacher sessions provided by Inland Seas Education Association, Suttons Bay, MI). [year 1 planning and implementation]
Support funding and hosting of place-based artists and storytellers in-residence (e.g., Milwaukee Water Commons (WI) or Waterlution; Milwaukee Water Commons 2022; Waterlution 2023). These individuals should be culturally representative of local communities; and would: (1) envision, and help others visualize, social-environment relationships and values through time; (2) produce commissioned products for display and use; and (3) create and lead workshops and other community programming. [1 year planning and implementation]
a. Efforts would include co-development (i.e., among agencies and local organizations) of, and reporting on, progress metrics; including measures and evidence for successful, sustainable, and equitable development of local place attachment.
Seek funding opportunities to invest in local narrative infrastructure that make narrative visible within the community. A requisite initial step is relation-building with local community members leading to identification of place history, champions, and stories; new efforts must compliment or amplify existing ones (e.g., narrative forms include oral history, podcast, long-form journalism, place-based learning, audio tours, and place-based walks). [Year 1 relationship-building;, Years 2-3 seek funding and implement]
a. Support local and regional organizations in developing cross-cultural and cross-generational programming that provides internship and other engagement opportunities. This action could be a valuable component of a Center of Excellence (see call out box in Discussion).
Research by, with, and for communities to strengthen the power of narrative to further community visions and articulate local identity and relationships to the Great Lakes and each other. [Years 1-3 co-develop research]
a. Collaboratively develop research capacity to share narratives (i.e., visions and identity); and demonstrate how narratives can enable communities to articulate their vision and knowledge to agencies implementing environmental programs, while building capacity for agencies to work with communities to meet both community and agency objectives.
b. Conduct research on how communities define and value different cultural ecosystem services (see glossary) based on different relationships with place (e.g., as a resource to manage, as a location for social cohesion, or as a relative), facilitating intentional inclusion of different value systems in decision making processes.
Convene multi-disciplinary teams to develop educational approaches and curricula (see glossary) that focus on local communities, and include multiple ways of understanding, knowing, and relating with the ecosystem; these for use in school-based formal and multi-generational informal educational programs. Educational approaches and curricula would support: (1) experiential, field-based learning and community science by students and community members or volunteers; and (2) active interface among local leaders, scientists, artists, and change makers. [Year 1-2 research; Year 3 product development]
Conduct a pilot program in two Great Lakes cities to work with local, schools, or government agencies to recruit tomorrow’s environmental leaders (e.g., conservation crews or GreenCorps in MN). Training activities could encompass more than traditional green job training programs that focus on biophysical environment management, expanding to leading authentic engagement (see glossary) sessions (i.e., simultaneously training staff in best practices) to hear all community concerns alongside restoration and create open dialogue, establishing summer internships or job training programs, and working with the community on how to navigate the complex process of engaging with government processes. [Years 2-4]
SMARTIE #2: Broadening the Scope of Environmental Education
Figure 6. SMARTIE Set #2: Broadening the scope of environmental education - Implementation timelines for recommendations. Supporting funding for teacher and professional workshops and place-based education can begin in one year. Seeking funding opportunities for investing in narrative infrastructure may take one year to build relationships and two years to fund and implement. Research by, with, and to strengthen community narrative may take two years to develop. Developing educational approaches for local communities might take two years of research and another year to develop products. Piloting environmental leader programs in two pilot cities would start in year two of this comprehensive effort and take about two years to develop.
Activities and Strategies Set #3
Statement of limitation: The activities and strategies presented here were developed by non-Indigenous scholars and practitioners and, while informed by relationships, training, and collaboration; are likely incomplete. Indigenous colleagues would likely envision and express them differently.
Provide institutional support and funding for Indigenous stewardship methods, concepts, and practices with co-developed metrics.
This set includes providing opportunities for federal, state, and provincial agencies, intertribal treaty commissions (Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission, 1854 Treaty Authority, Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority), and Tribal governments to develop and share cross-institutional cultural learning within Great Lakes ecosystem-based management programs to build trust. Knowledge-sharing and mutual respect are key to the success of this set. Project plans would also include progress metrics that include Indigenous and western stewardship models, knowledge philosophies and principles.
Building Trust with Communities is a Mandatory First Step to Implementing These Changes
Building trust is critical to incorporate change and grow support for efforts with a broader community audience and requires focused investments of both time and resources. There are four main types of trust that are most relevant here - contractual trust, communication trust, competency trust, and caring trust. Some ways to build a diverse trust landscape include publishing updates regularly, clearly communicating new or changed laws and seeking input before making decisions, carry on respectful meetings with space for authentic engagement, hire qualified people and provide training and mentors for staff and community members, and provide opportunities to get to know each other without a specific project or program in mind. Agency and organization staff can also build trust through interactions - exhibiting humility and vulnerability, asking questions with genuine curiosity, and proactively sharing resources that are of value to community members (e.g., provide information in multiple languages and formats; Hoelting 2022).
Incorporate Indigenous Lifeways. Build into federal RFPs a standard expectation that incorporates Indigenous lifeways (e.g., early relationship building, stewardship perspectives, methods, or processes (Whyte et al. 2017) concurrent with the Biden Administration’s Executive Memorandum on Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Federal Decision-Making dated November 15, 2021 (White House 2021). This strategy would require partnering with Tribal governments, respected Indigenous knowledge-keepers, and intertribal treaty commissions. [Implement Immediately]
Conduct desk review of existing joint work between state and federal agencies, Tribal Nations (see glossary), and Indigenous communities under existing funding streams. Document examples of effective co-management within Great Lakes Basin from BIA, USFS, NPS, NOAA and other federal agencies. Also include examples from state and local agencies (with attention to their funding sources). Consider management within reservation boundaries and co-management within off reservation Ceded Territories. [Years 2-3 research and report]
a. If needed following the review: A Great Lakes agency or organization that is either tribally led, or has verifiable collaborative relationships with Tribal Nations, convene essential partners working to advance Indigenous leadership in Great Lakes stewardship, ideally in person within the Ceded Territories. The group should identify existing Indigenous stewardship successes or models in the Great Lakes region (on and off reservation lands), and existing gaps in support; and share visions and perspectives related to healthy Great Lakes social-ecological systems.
Apply results of desk review and subsequent consultation to develop government-government guidelines and best practices for co-management of Ceded Territory lands and waters (e.g., joint workflows; convening process; shared principles; and incorporation of Tribal planning processes, where needed). Document existing examples of effective co-management off-reservation (e.g., co-development of St. Louis River Manoomin Restoration Plan, NOAA 2021). [Years 4-5 report]
Normalize the use of memoranda of understanding, or other written commitments that seek Tribal participation and permission, and that respect Indigenous sovereignty for application of co-management practices: Build capacity by funding (as professional peers) Tribal staffing and Tribal liaisons within federal (and perhaps state) agencies (e.g., the US Forest Service now has Tribal liaisons); funding Tribal participation throughout; incorporating Tribal planning processes; and hosting meetings with multi-tribe leadership. [Years 2-3 to research and report]
Support the co-development of guidelines and instruction for broadly applicable Indigenous-informed metrics, that assess environmental stewardship initiatives and long-term impacts on traditional Indigenous lifeways and quality of life in the Great Lakes Region. [Years 2-3 to research and report]
IJC and associated Great Lakes Water Quality governance bodies should coordinate with current Indigenous-led research. This knowledge collaboration should be elevated and considered as one of the Centers of Excellence as envisioned in the Great Lakes Science Strategy for the Next Decade 2022) [timeline TBD].
SMARTIE #3: Institutional Support for Indigenous Stewardship
Figure 7. SMARTIE Set #3: Institutional Support for Indigenous Stewardship - implementation timelines for recommendations. Incorporating Indigenous lifeways into RFPs can begin immediately. A desk review of joint work might begin in year two and may take two years to conduct. Subsequently, developing government guidelines and best practices would begin in year four and continue. MOU for co-management and the co-development of Indigenous-informed metrics for assessing impacts could begin in year two and take about two years. Working with the IJC and other scientific efforts will unfold as these institutional bodies evolve.
Activities and Strategies Set #4
Co-develop core social values for the Great Lakes region to augment physical, chemical, and biological integrity “in a good way” and embody respect for "all our relations."
These core social values (e.g., use-based, intrinsic, and relational) must be enduring, broadly accepted and supported, and become embedded in governance and programs at all levels. Examples of core values are: consider “all our relations,” assess impacts for future generations, employ precautionary principle, and honor the Public Trust Doctrine.
Conduct a basin-wide assessment of community (broadly defined) uses and values of the Great Lakes, relationships to the Great Lakes, and perspectives on Great Lakes priorities. This is important because there is not one “Great Lakes region.” The region is patchy in terms of physical geographies, cultures, histories, and GL relationships; much like a quilt. [Year 1 Steering Committee; Year 2 co-develop research plan; Years 3-5 conduct study]
a. Develop a steering committee and invest in relationships among representative organizations, local, state, federal governmental institutions, Tribal and First Nations and Métis (see glossary), and community leaders to co-develop a research plan to conduct the basin-wide assessment; possibly in cooperation with interested institutions (e.g., International Joint Commission, or a Center of Excellence).
i. The assessment should use multiple social science and geography methodologies, including some combination of: policy document analysis, media (e.g., news organizations, blogs), content analysis, surveys of different populations, focus groups, and ethnographic, or other methods to identify and characterize the multiple overlapping values and their spatial distribution.
b. Steering committee identifies and characterizes an initial set of core values based on the assessment and a tracking mechanism to begin to incorporate the values into restoration programs and projects.
Encourage the federal governments to adopt core social values by updating existing grant requirements, incentivize implementation of these values, and develop new funding opportunities to infuse the values through Great Lakes policies, programs, and projects. [Years 4-5 post-assessment outreach]
Infuse values throughout programs, policies, and projects through:
a. Updating existing grant requirements to incentivize implementation of these values and piloting new funding opportunities to support these values; and
b. Building organizational capacity to recognize and incorporate these values by providing expert facilitation and training to incorporate these values into ongoing and future restoration. [Years 4-5 post-assessment outreach]
SMARTIE #4: Co-Develop Core Values
Figure 8. SMARTIE Set #4: Co-develop Core Values - implementation timelines for recommendations. Developing a basin-wide assessment will take at least five years: one year to develop a steering committee, a year to develop a study plan, and several years to conduct the assessment. As values are identified, they can inform grant requirements and can be infused through programs, policies, and projects.
Activities and Strategies Set #5
Create space within Great Lakes programs to elevate community dimensions and invest in community capacity, so communities are better able to act as partners in remediation, restoration, and revitalization.
Great Lakes program funding can enhance sense of place, revitalization, economic, and environmental justice outcomes; when community goals and values are centered and acknowledged, alongside environmental targets, from the project conceptualization stage through project completion.
Request granting agencies provide technical and other social or capacity assistance through outreach to interested groups and project managers. Many places and communities may not know the options that are available nor have access to experienced people, and could benefit from objective outside knowledge and skills. [Implement immediately]
Enhance community or local government ability to ensure projects meet community needs by restructuring the grant process (e.g., advanced notice of proposal requirement, adjusting timelines, and funding a pre-proposal stage) to allow grantees to build relationships and trust, within and across communities. This is a crucial step to increasing community ability to participate in project planning and the potential success of restoration and revitalization projects. This pre-proposal work will ensure community goals are included in project work [e.g., project planning, project applications, pre- and post-project monitoring (Years 1- 2)]
Waive or otherwise allow for greater flexibility in meeting, match requirements (e.g., time in lieu of dollars or level scaled by community incomes) or reduced requirements (e.g., lower match requirement) to facilitate the implementation of projects that directly meet the needs of those communities. [Years 1- 2]
Lower process burdens within the grants procedures to facilitate broader participation of representative community and organizational grantees:
a. Provide funding for pre-proposal work (e.g., relationship building, and technical capacity building needed to apply for grants);
b. Extend timelines to accommodate relationship building and application writing;
c. Provide technical assistance. [Years 1-2]
Create assistance mechanisms for support of grantees by non-agency entities. [Years 1-2]
SMARTIE #5: Enable Community Partnership in Remediation, Restoration, and Revitalization
Figure 9. SMARTIE Set #5: Enable Community Partnership in Remediation, Restoration, and Revitalization - implementation timelines for recommendations. Providing technical and other assistance through outreach to interested groups and project managers can begin immediately and continue. Restructuring grant processes, avoiding grant requirements that disadvantage communities, reducing process burdens, and providing support for backbone groups may take at least two years to develop.
Activities and Strategies Set #6
Invest in the research and practice of developing quantitative and qualitative human and environmental well-being indicators and metrics (e.g., for access, identity, or community benefits; similar to Beneficial Use Impairments or BUIs).
Support and participate in the IJC Great Lakes Science Strategy for the Next Decade, the IJC’s planned Social Dimensions Project, and other efforts that are working to expand the evidence base. [Implement immediately]
Co-develop a framework for indicators and metrics that cover dimensions such as environmental, place, program, equity/justice, and well-being. This framework should begin with a synthesis of existing indicator efforts and include a focus on development and implementation of local or regional indicators - hosting workshops and sharing resources. Years 2-3]
Based on the framework above, co-develop lists of social and well-being indicators similar to beneficial uses (i.e., ecosystem services), considering domains of well-being (see glossary) as depicted in Smith et al. (2013), the four dimensions of environmental justice (i.e., distributional, procedural, recognitional, and capabilities; see glossary; Cook and Swyngendouw 2012; Eisenhauer et al. 2021), and the four dimensions of accessibility to ecosystem greenspaces (i.e., geographic, economic, socio-cultural, and psycho-social; Szaboova et al. 2020) and informed by USEPA indicator research (Angradi et al. 2019; Norris et al. 2022). Create a framework to develop well-being, environmental justice, and greenspace accessibility metrics and indicators. [Years 2-3]
Develop guidelines and instructions for the implementation of broadly applicable process and progress metrics that provide measures and evidence for successful, sustainable, and equitable development of local place attachment. [Years 4-5]
a. Ecosystem-based management demands that we learn to integrate quantitative and qualitative metrics, along with an appreciation for place. Quantitative and qualitative methods exist for measuring sense of local place and civic engagement. Effective metrics and data sources can be qualitative; e.g., interviews, photos, activities, implemented programs or curricula, or publicly accessible products.
b. Potential qualitative and quantitative metrics include: improved staff capacities, staffing representative of local communities, increasing grant success, increased formal partnerships, increased proposals awarded, or increased community engagement. We must recognize that such as biophysical change, social change also takes time, thus metric and assessment timelines need to reflect this.
SMARTIE #6: Invest in Human and Environmental Well-Being Metrics and Indicators
Figure 10. SMARTIE Set #6: Invest in Human and Environmental Well-being Metrics and Indicators - implementation timelines for recommendations. Support for the IJC Decadal Science Strategy and the IJC’s Social Dimensions Project can begin immediately. Efforts to co-develop a framework for metric types and lists of social and well-being indicators may begin in year two and continue. Developing guidelines and instructions for the implementation of process metrics may start in year four and continue.
Discussion
Creating a New Paradigm
Entering this process, we expected to construct a neat, discrete list of about ten activities and strategies that would help point us, collectively, towards a new, socio-ecological vision of how our communities, with special attention to marginalized communities, could better interact with ecosystem-based management programs in the Great Lakes region. This is a socio-ecological vision that includes humans, their capacity for connections with ecosystems, and the recognition that humans are acting to improve our environment. Instead, the visioning process produced a rich, in-depth agenda that created practical immediate and long-term steps that are bold and far reaching. These steps have the potential to build space and capacity for: communities to develop their adaptive capacity and exercise their agency to choose their futures; change the narrative of the role of communities and governments in the remediation and restoration of ecosystems; and create a broader narrative that will support not only ecosystem resilience, but also community resilience. Through this agenda, governmental agencies, organizations, and individuals have the potential to not only improve ecosystems, but to also repair social relationships that were damaged along with our ecosystems during the intensive industrial era. We have the potential to write a future where we see that humans are part of the ecosystem, not as stressors, but as protagonists building a vibrant and sustainable future for Great Lakes coastal communities.
Main Themes of Enabling and Constraining Factors
To create a new paradigm, we needed to spend time examining the old one. To that end, the process we used identified conditions that were either enabling or constraining our progress towards reaching our desired social outcomes for the region. As mentioned in the methods section, these concepts represent a collective understanding of relevant social conditions and dynamics of the Great Lakes system based on the group’s experience and expertise, in relation to each of the five desired social outcomes. This was the understanding that informed our development of the final activities and strategies, which then became SMARTIE recommendations. Here, we discuss some of the patterns that we recognized as we worked through the process.
Some of the enabling themes that related to more than one desired social outcome include: conditions that facilitate growth in community (and adaptive) capacity and power (e.g., using boundary-spanning organizations, increasing diversity in representation, and providing institutional support for co-production); and new recognition of the importance of understanding and incorporating local complexities into decision making (e.g., authentic engagement, place-based attachment, community stories, and social cohesion). Effective coordination and communication among and between various participants, through creating new shared spaces and lifting up existing or supporting new translators, were also identified as important enabling conditions.
The constraining themes can be characterized as mismatches: biophysical assessment metrics applied to social activities and strategies; or between scales (e.g., timelines, geographical, or institutional), systemic power differentials, and unevenly built-in subsidies and deterrents. Although community capacity was identified as an enabling condition, at the same time, the lack of capacity was identified as an important constraint. For example, there was inconsistent capacity related to financial resources, and government and organizational staffing; as well as inconsistent or insufficient support for community capacity, particularly in smaller communities. These constraints challenge communities to participate in the programs that are meant to help them adapt to systemic stressors, such as climate change, population shifts, legacy contamination, and economic stressors. Furthermore, existing policies and governance (e.g., program requirements, deadlines) structures may make it difficult to incorporate multiple worldviews and ways of knowing (e.g., Indigenous and local community) into policies, programs, and projects.
Discerning Workshop Metaprinciples
Although we started the workshop by identifying desired social outcomes, we realized that some of the outcomes were not specific endpoints, but rather, aspirational values. Some of these values were overarching across outcomes, and important to any activity or strategy that we would ultimately identify. At the workshop, we termed these values “metaprinciples” because they should be infused throughout all the recommendations that we make. These values or metaprinciples include: Tribal sovereignty, justice and equity, adaptive management, and a robust infrastructure to recognize multiple ways of knowing. They are important because environmental restoration that actively considers community values has more potential for communities to realize their potential value. We describe below how equity and Indigenous Knowledge, specifically, were included in our final recommendations.
How we Centered Social Equity
Equity was initially centered by whom was invited to the workshop. Most participants explicitly emphasize equity in their research and professional work. Equity quickly emerged within all the desired social outcomes identified early in the workshop. Desired social outcome #1 states, “restoration and revitalization actions explicitly contribute to equitable human well-being,” desired social outcome #2 states “communities receive support for ongoing adaptation,” desired social outcome #3 states, “equitable governance processes are operating,” desired social outcome #4 states, “restoration and revitalization actions are contextual to place,” and desired social outcome #5 states, “environmental programs actively build a multi-generational and multi-cultural stewardship ethic.” (Table 2). This strong establishment in the desired social outcomes assured that equity was highlighted in subsequent workshop discussions of “enabling and constraining factors” (our theoretical basis per each desired social outcome) and suggested “activities and strategies” (working to achieve each desired social outcome). Finally, in adopting the “SMARTIE” model for our recommendations, with “IE” denoting Inclusion and Equity, respectively, we were assured that these were built into our recommendations.
Although the results of this report are heavily focused on processes to build community and adaptive capacity, braiding multiple ways of knowing, and updating agency processes, the overall goal is to better ensure that all four dimensions of environmental justice (i.e., distributive, procedural, recognitional, capabilities; Eisenhauer et al. 2021) are represented in environmental decision making to improve the material well-being of communities. Improving procedures and ensuring community claims are recognized ensures that the distribution of environmental goods and bads is more equitable. Furthering capabilities justice (i.e., recognizing how environment contributes to well-being) requires that the remediation, restoration, or other environmental actions benefit communities (Schlosberg 2007; Edwards et al. 2016).
How we Considered Indigenous Perspectives and Knowledges
We invited regional Indigenous scholars, but due to the nature of the planning process (including our tight project timeline), none were able to attend. Two of our reviewers mentioned that tight timelines, specifically, are a challenge because it takes time to build relationships to work with Indigenous communities. Thus, we acknowledge that our resulting thoughts and recommendations are not directly reflective of Indigenous views. Future workshops should allow for advanced planning time to accommodate relationship building with Indigenous communities and leadership to encourage participation in all stages of process (e.g., problem formulation, planning, compensation). A reviewer commented, “Indigenous knowledge has much to offer in regards to genuine stewardship and caretaking for our sacred ecology, but we all need to be at the table together in mutually respectful dialogue.” Nonetheless, our intent was to highlight the importance of, and set the stage for, stronger inclusion of Indigenous perspectives and knowledges into Great Lakes ecosystem-based management programs.
Workshop participants did include several active Indigenous allies or project partners, as well as reviewers from an intertribal organization. They brought knowledge of, and guidance for, effective partnering with Indigenous communities. We used the Indigenous scholarship “Seven Indigenous principles for successful cooperation in Great Lakes conservation initiatives” (Whyte et al. 2017) as a workshop preparation resource. Furthermore, we would direct readers to two other resources: the Guidance Document on Traditional Ecological Knowledge Pursuant to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and the United States Caucus of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Task Team, Annex 10 Science Subcommittee (Vanator et al. 2021). A special open-access collection “Bridging Indigenous and non-Indigenous Knowledge Systems” in Journal of Great Lakes Research (Muir et al. 2023) is another scholarly resource.
These efforts yielded several of the desired social outcomes that reflect Indigenous values. Desired social outcome #3 states, “equitable governance processes… are informed by multiple ways of knowing and are responsive to local context,” desired social outcome #4 states, “Restoration and revitalization actions are contextual to place. Actions reflect unique local physical, social, and cultural aspects;” and desired social outcome #5 states, “build a multigenerational and multicultural stewardship ethic that respects all our relations, identities, and roles; ‘in a good way’ (Table 2).” The language in these desired societal outcomes reflect Indigenous perspectives and knowledges and seeded our subsequent discussions of enabling and constraining factors, and subsequently, suggested actions and strategies. One of our final recommendations focused solely on strengthening support for Indigenous involvement in Great Lakes management programs.
A Critical Moment in Time
We recognize the importance of harnessing the potential of this key moment in time, which represents an important opportunity to embed social alongside natural systems in Great Lakes restoration and other ecosystem-based management programs. There is a convergence of catalysts, including novel and historic funding opportunities and research centers, as well as an increasing awareness of the importance of prioritizing social systems in these efforts. The US federal government is funding opportunities to increase the capacities of Great Lakes underserved communities to be active participants in restoration projects through providing specific funding opportunities and supporting “Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers” at local universities (USEPA 2023). In addition to external opportunities to grow these practices, there is a strong internal interest among agencies, academic institutions, and NGOs to more deeply engage with and integrate community into ongoing projects (e.g., knowledge co-production), build “Centers of Excellence[5]” that can serve these communities, as well as build and support a regional community of practice.
[5] There are existing calls to create space for this Community of Practice, including Centers of Excellence in the IJC’s 2022 Decadal Science Strategy and in a NWF-CIGLR white paper on assessing and updating Great Lakes indicators.
Establishing “Boundary Spanning, Community Collaborative Centers of Excellence”
In developing a Great Lakes science strategy for the coming decade, the International Joint Commission’s, Great Lakes Science Advisory Board (2022) stated a priority action (and related investment; LimnoTech 2022) of establishing a small, and well-supported, set of permanent “Centers of Excellence”, to support “long-term, basin-scale, interdisciplinary needs in key evolving (knowledge) areas,” and to “provide a forum to handle cross-cutting issues…involving various fields of natural and social science.” The decadal strategy highlighted several possible center themes pertinent to this paper, including: socioeconomic data collection and analysis; indigenous and community knowledge systems; diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in Great Lakes science; and integrated Great Lakes education involving science, engineering, arts, history, geography, culture, and public outreach. The strategy emphasized funding support for facilities, hiring staff, seed grants, shared information repositories, and collaboration. Recent CIGLR workshops have also highlighted a need to develop and support similar centers (Murray et al., 2021).
We strongly support this proposal for establishing a set of “Boundary Spanning, Community Collaborative Centers of Excellence” within the region. Such bases in space and time are needed to support progress towards the desired social outcomes. Our discussions imagined Centers of Excellence as both research and resource centers; homes for research communities of practice, and sources of boundary spanning and collaboration resources required for knowledge and program co-production with a range of community level partners. A topical Center could function across the region using a “hub-satellite” model, partnering with local entities. Ideas for specific Centers of Excellence included: (1) Broadening community revitalization within AOCs; (2) Integrating Indigenous knowledges [a currently, independently proposed “Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science” could serve as such a Center; and (3) Developing indicators and metrics for coupled human-environment systems.
During the workshop, we brainstormed some of the main benefits of developing a Great Lakes social scholars’ community of practice, including curating foundational scholarly materials (e.g., peer-reviewed articles and white papers), establishing common language (i.e., a glossary) and goals to build momentum for change, creating a network that can help inform agency calls for policy development, and connecting to other active nodes of value-based water work with different foci (i.e., drinking water access) in the Great Lakes region. To implement and maintain this community of practice, we will need to identify a funding source and an administrative home.
Conclusion
Over the past 14 years, there has been tremendous investment in restoration of Great Lakes nearshore waters suffering from legacy industrial impairments and much more is on the way. The completion of most major remediation projects anticipated because of recent GLRI funding boosts, which are a generational US federal investment, is an inflection point for the Great Lakes region. We can close a chapter that has been focused solely on the environment, while opening one with an integrated approach that supports both healthy society and environment. How fully we address this coupled human-environment ecosystem during this investment, and form the scope and scale of future investments, will shape the character, culture, and sustainability of the region for many decades to come.
It is important to note that this work does not exist in a vacuum, but is part of a multitude of efforts to restore the Great Lakes and ensure their health and resilience going forward into a changing climate. This work builds on the Prescription Paper, GLRI and Action Plans, and decades of scholarly research and applied work in this field. Ongoing projects in this space include building on the seeds planted here and in the IJC’s Great Lakes Science Strategy for the Next Decade and The Healthy Headwaters lab[6]. Together, these efforts weave together scholarship and practice towards a comprehensive new future for our coupled socio-ecological system.
[6] The Healthy Headwaters Lab. 2023. Information and continuing activities from a series of educational workshops:“ Re-energizing the Ecosystem Approach in the 21st Century.” Accessed online 9/25/2023 at https://www.healthyheadwaterslab.ca/projects/ecosystem-approach
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR) for administrative and financial support and the Erb Family Foundation for financial support via the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition. We also thank our workshop notetakers: Marja Copeland, Kristina Waterbury, Deanna Geelhoed, Margaret Throckmorton, Anna Boegehold, and Abigail Goodman for their tireless efforts capturing complex discussions in real-time, both digitally and by hand. The SMARTIE recommendation section was greatly improved with Sebastian Paczuski’s clear timeline figures that demonstrate how each set of recommendations could be implemented. We also thank Emily Eisenhauer, Kathleen Torso, and Dawn White for their thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this report. This document has been reviewed in accordance with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, and approved for publication as EPA/600/R-23/290.
The citation for this report is:
Williams, K.C., K.B. Mika, P.W. Seelbach, D. Erickson, M. Klasic, E. Ho-Tassone, J.M. Wondolleck, J.G. Read, D. Porter, M.W. Price, A. Armstrong, R. Holifield, D.C. Michener, R. Nixon, R.K. Norton, E.H. Tyner, J.F. Bratton, N. Chin, P.J. Doran, T.J. Ehlinger, L. Goralnik, D.R. Kashian, C. McLaughlin, S.B. Mills, D.M. Peroff, M. Shriberg, S. Hughes, V. Gagnon, J. Adamowski, J.S. Carlton, J.C. Hoffman, L.B. Johnson. 2023. Centering Communities in Great Lakes Restoration and Ecosystem-based Management Programs, Report to Healing Our Waters Coalition. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Duluth, MN. EPA/600/R-23/290. 61pp.