The bricks and mortar of collaborative ecosystem-based restoration and management

For three decades, communities, agencies, industries, and stakeholders throughout the Great Lakes have been working together to restore degraded ecosystems and revitalize local communities through the Areas of Concern Program. Their work constitutes a set of natural experiments in collaborative ecosystem-based management (EBM). Similar experiments have been occurring simultaneously elsewhere in North America and the world. Despite differences in scale, scope, and context, these initiatives all share several notable attributes in common. These findings are distilled in a conceptual framework of core factors that enable effective EBM. The analogy of Bricks and Mortar distinguishes between the organizational elements that support, structure, and guide a process and the motivational factors that energize and sustain it. Bricks provide the governance infrastructure within which activities occur: the table that provides a legitimate convening place; the authorities, purpose, and scope that bound the initiative; the organizational form that ensures essential functions are fulfilled; and the formally codified roles and responsibilities. Mortar is what motivates people to engage and stay engaged: the relationships that they form and the personal skillsets they bring to the table; a shared sense of place, purpose, and responsibility; an effective and rewarding process; and sustained commitment and leadership at all levels. These findings about the critical role of Bricks and Mortar in enabling EBM are translated into simple diagnostic tools for assessing their strength and viability in similar initiatives within the Great Lakes region and elsewhere.