Perspectives on engaging decision makers to support protection and restoration of ecosystems in the Great Lakes Basin

Background/Question/Methods

Ecologists are challenged, by personal conviction and funders, to apply our science to advance laws and regulations aimed at protecting and sustaining ecological systems. This requires cultivating modes and styles of communication differing from those typically used to exchange ideas, information, and findings among scientists. Fortunately, effective training resources designed to improve skills in communicating with non-scientists exist and are increasingly available to students and established researchers. The resultant improvements in our abilities to communicate with broad audiences are critical for better informing of policies addressing societal problems associated with accelerated species extinctions, declining biodiversity, emergent ecological diseases, increasing pollutant loadings, and climate change. Acquisition of “public communication” skills, however, is only a first step in promoting evidence-based policy development. Employing these skills to engage diverse interest groups and policy makers across geopolitical scales, from local to state, regional, national and international levels in developing and implementing effective policies is a considerably greater challenge. Former Massachusetts Congressman Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill’s aphorism, “All politics is local”, although lacking in any formal test, provides a useful framework for bringing science to bear on environmentally driven social problems.

Results/Conclusions

Non-scientists, with whom we must partner to develop policies that protect and sustain human-ecological systems, typically frame their views of environmental quality from direct experiences rather than scientific assessments or media coverage. We all perceive environmental signals, such as diminished air and water quality, extreme climatic events, invasive species, landscape fragmentation, and emergent diseases and pathogens, at local scales. As such, citizens and elected officials often seek local experts, including scientists but also others, to interpret environmental problems and to partner in seeking solutions. This presents multiple opportunities for ecologists to bring science to local stakeholders (e.g. lake associations, hunting and fishing clubs, conservancies, advocacy groups) and elected officials (local, state, national) who rely on local constituents to remain in office. Importantly, it is at the local level where we, as ecologists, can apply our communication skills to counteract the well-organized, well-funded science denial campaigns which have successfully manufactured confusion and doubt about established scientific findings. I will present examples of ongoing efforts of ecologists working at local through national scales with citizen groups and policy makers to confront anti-science campaigns and to protect and sustain ecosystems and human well-being in the Great Lakes Basin.