The very complex nature of coastal and marine ecosystems, while posing conservation challenges, also provides vast opportunities for marine conservation. The many ecosystem functions and services that coastal and marine ecosystems provide are in fact tightly interlinked. For example, by conserving wetlands to protect biodiversity, fish nursery habitats remain intact, leading to increased fisheries production; the natural waste processing function remains, leading to better water quality; coastal zones are also better buffered from the potential damaging impacts of storms; and the carbon remains stored in wetland plants and trees. Similar cases can be made for other marine ecosystem services. 

 

Not only are marine ecosystem services themselves interconnected; coastal and marine ecosystems are also inextricably linked to the activities on land. Recognizing the impacts terrestrial systems have on coastal and marine areas, marine and coastal conservation strategies are increasingly taking a more holistic, or "ridge-to-reef', approach. 

 

Focusing on the ecological relationships between terrestrial and marine ecosystems, such marine conservation strategies examine the "upstream" agricultural and industrial activities whose impacts flow "downstream" from the watershed and rivers to the coasts and the oceans. As such, effective marine conservation and coastal sustainable development demand this holistic approach be undertaken to identify the full spectrum of threats, impacts, and their causes in marine and coastal ecosystems.

 

Michigan, in conjunction with Ford, Google and other partners, has just announced Mobility Innovation Corridors for Surface and Air Mobility in the Detroit area, and the Straits of Mackinac are being proposed as the Marine Innovation Corridor. The Surface, Air, and Marine Mobility Corridors will work across state government, academia, and private industry to enhance Michigan's mobility ecosystem, including developing dynamic mobility and electrification policies and supporting the start-up and scale-up of emerging technologies and businesses.

 

Recognizing the vital need for such a holistic approach, Viability Lab will launch the Mackinac Marine Mobility Innovation Corridor in the Straits of Mackinac.

 

Just as the land, air, and water work synergistically in nature, this comprehensive corridor approach to our evolving mobility systems will also yield tremendous environmental, economic, and social benefits for the state of Michigan and beyond.