IAGLR to evaluate Great Lakes restoration with Erb Family Foundation support

For IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 21, 2017

Contacts: John Hartig, Great Lakes AOC Project Director, [email protected], 226-772-3126; Erin Dunlop, IAGLR President, [email protected], 705-755-2296

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ANN ARBOR, MI — How effective are efforts to restore the most degraded areas in the Great Lakes? A new grant from the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation will support the International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR) in answering that question. IAGLR will conduct research with Canadian and U.S. experts to evaluate achievements and lessons learned from 32 years of efforts to clean up Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AOCs).

Billions of dollars have been spent on restoration efforts, according to Dr. John Hartig, a former IAGLR president with 30 years of AOC experience. Hartig will lead the project on behalf of IAGLR.  “The time is right to conduct a scientifically defensible evaluation of the AOC program,” he says. “Key findings from this research will help sustain restoration programs in the Great Lakes and will help other countries in their efforts to clean up and restore degraded ecosystems throughout the world.”

The project began with a symposium held last summer at IAGLR’s annual Conference on Great Lakes Research. The symposium, cosponsored by IAGLR, the Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management Society (AEHMS), Great Lakes Commission, Great Lakes Water Quality Board of the International Joint Commission, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, focused on key achievements, lessons learned, and next steps. In the fall, Hartig was appointed as a Fulbright Scholar in recognition of the importance of this work.

The Erb Family Foundation grant of $100,000 over two years will support the next phase to review and evaluate restoration efforts. The IAGLR Board of Directors will help provide critical peer review of the research undertaken. Findings will be published in a book in the AEHMS Ecovision World Monograph Series, a special issue in the society’s journal, and a review article in IAGLR’s Journal of Great Lakes Research. In addition, a user-friendly publication will be prepared for a broad range of stakeholders to help sustain support for cleaning up AOCs and to inspire and motivate others to restore other degraded aquatic ecosystems.

“This project reflects IAGLR’s commitment to use our collective scientific expertise for informing decision-making to protect the environmental health of large lake watersheds,” notes IAGLR President Erin Dunlop. “Dr. Hartig led our Great Lakes Science-Policy Initiative several years ago, and through this new project, he continues his long record of service to the association.”

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The International Association for Great Lakes Research is a scientific organization made up of researchers studying the Laurentian Great Lakes, other large lakes of the world, and their watersheds, as well as those with an interest in such research.