Pluralistic approaches in research aim to advance farming and freshwater restoration in the Great Lakes basin

Abstract

The launch of the UN Decade of Restoration calls for the imperative acceleration of efforts to curb ecosystem degradation through local and global pathways. Freshwater restoration poses many challenges due to the complexities of human-induced stressors which require coordinated efforts, across land and water and have for the most part been unsuccessful in achieving restoration goals. Pluralism is one pathway that has potential to overcome challenges to offer transformative research-based solutions. We present two case studies from the Laurentian Great Lakes basin where an intentional pluralistic approach was taken to develop science-based research that was community-responsive and locally relevant while also offering insight to other contexts regionally and globally. These two examples—the Farm and Freshwater Ecology Research Network and the Indigenous Knowledge Circle—engaged local farming and Indigenous communities within a single collaborative program. Here we describe our framework for decentering science to instead centre Indigenous and local knowledge systems and relationships; in doing so, we discuss how this approach improved our research questions and goals while also offering more impactful insights for local practitioners, stewards, and communities. We share short-term versus long-term benefits, co-benefits, and trade-offs in pursuing this effort. Thus far, a plural approach that included sustained investment in relationship-building and a commitment to reciprocal knowledge exchange and co-production are providing critical threads in support of coordinated restoration efforts in the short and long term.