Environmental Protection Agency over its approval of state changes to water quality standards that the tribes allege would increase pollution and damage wild rice. In July, two other northern Minnesota tribes sued the U.S. The suit accused the state of failing to protect water where wild rice grows by allowing the pumping of billions of gallons of groundwater from an oil pipeline project. Most Ojibwe bands want to save natural stands, however, and several recently filed lawsuits fighting water contamination - including one dismissed this year in White Earth tribal court that named manoomin as the lead plaintiff in a novel “rights of nature” approach. She works on both conservation and developing more resistant breeds for cultivated wild rice growers, an industry she estimates adds about $58 million to the state economy and has far outpaced natural production for decades. “It’s going to completely ravish natural stands,” said Jenny Kimball, a professor of agronomy and plant genetics at the University of Minnesota. A big bounce (in water levels) in the spring can wipe out an entire lake.”Ī warming climate can also damage the plant, whose seeds need to be close to freezing on shallow lake bottoms for months to germinate well, and brings destructive invasive species and fungi to Minnesota, Wisconsin and parts of Canada, wild rice’s only natural habitats. “Bigger storm events when it’s uprooted and wiped out, we seem to have more of these. “It seems to be tied to climate change,” she added. While some natural cycling is normal, bad years for wild rice are becoming more frequent, said Ann Geisen, a wildlife lake specialist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). And that endangers wild rice’s spiritual and economic gifts. There’s a lot who have gone home already, and when I’m ricing, the harder I work … the closer I am to them.”īut the beds are “continually shrinking,” said White, who’s been ricing for three decades. “That manoomin is our brother, that saved us as a people many different ways,” said Dave Bismarck, who was loading about 200 pounds of just-harvested rice at a nearby landing. “Because of stories we heard of old times, when … even a handful like this meant a meal or two for the kids, and at the end of winter it actually might save your family.” “Cleaning the boat real good,” White explained later as he swiped the rice into a sack. “You learn the essence of hard work out here,” he said while knocking rice on a recent afternoon, with duct tape over his trousers’ hem and shoes so not a grain would be wasted. A 44-year-old single dad, he takes his two boys and a nephew ricing to help cover the bills and for the kids to buy video games. This year, they can get $6 per pound of rice, a high price because the two-week harvest is particularly meager, said Ryan White. Experienced ricers can harvest a quarter ton a day. In two hours on the water, the pairs of polers, who stood steering with 20-foot poles, and knockers, who rained rice into the canoe until it formed a thick, green-brown carpet, gathered about 35 pounds. “Plants were listening and chimed in and said, ‘We have gifts too, so Anishinaabe can have a good life,'” Fleming explained. In their stories, the Creator, before bringing to the earth Anishinaabe, the first Indigenous person, gathered all animals to ask how they could help. That reciprocity between humans and nature is essential to Ojibwe spirituality. “Any time you take something from the earth, you want to thank the earth for what she’s given us,” said Kelsey Burns, a student and first-time ricer. Before scattering it on the calm water and setting out, the youths gathered around another elder praying in Ojibwe - to introduce the group to the natural elements around them, explain why it needed their help, ask for safe passage on the water and give thanks. The basic instructions for newbies reflect that dual reality - respect the rice by not breaking the stems, and if you lose balance, jump out to avoid tipping the canoe with its precious cargo.įleming gave everyone tobacco from a zip-close bag. That will help wild rice remain available as an essential element for ceremonies, but also as a much-needed income generator for the Leech Lake reservation, where nearly 40% of Native residents live in poverty. Those threats make it crucial to teach young band members to harvest wild rice respecting both rituals and the environment. But changing climate, invasive species and pollution are threatening the plant even as its cultivated sibling rises in popularity nationwide as an exceptionally nutritious food, though often priced out of reach of urban Indigenous communities.
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