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6. Regional Cooperation
Aquatic invaders may originate from an adjacent ecosystem or from an ecosystem on the other side of the globe, and they do not honor political boundaries. The Great Lakes are subdivided by the international boundary between the U.S. and Canada, and state, provincial, tribal, and First Nation boundaries within each country. Since the late 1980s, when species invasions came to the forefront of public awareness, we have seen one country (Canada) implement voluntary guidelines for ballast water exchange, one country implement mandatory requirements for ballast water exchange (U.S.), and the State of Michigan and Province of Ontario have proposed to protect their respective waters through legislation independent of any other jurisdiction.
In the meantime, NIS keep on coming (Ricciardi 2001). Implementation of individual ballast water regulations by one or several states or provinces will prove meaningless because AIS can and do move quickly from one region of the Great Lakes basin to another. Effective management of the problem will require collaboration and cooperation between all affected states and provinces and between the two federal governments. It is, therefore, imperative that development and implementation of legislation be conducted using a basin-wide approach.
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