Manoomin Stewardship Guide spreads awareness and acceptances of shared understanding of wild rice in Michigan

As part of Native American Heritage Month in Michigan, MI Environment is highlighting the Manoomin Stewardship Guide released earlier this year. EGLE is part of the Michigan Wild Rice Initiative.

The Michigan Wild Rice Initiative is a collaboration of the State of Michigan and the 12 federally recognized tribes within Michigan. It has brought specialists and managers together to share information, coordinate approaches, and elevate awareness about wild rice conservation and restoration. A major focus of the Initiative has been the development of a stewardship guide.

Finalized earlier this year, We All Live Together in a Good Way with Manoomin: Stewardship Guide tells the story of manoomin through an Anishinaabe perspective. It also explores the socio-ecological context of manoomin restoration and revitalization and offers a series of goals and objectives to support the work of the Michigan Wild Rice Initiative.

The guide – a living document – offers a series of goals and objectives that partners can help support as they choose. The goals are not standards or prescriptions across the manoomin community, as community members agreed on promoting decentralized, locally-centered efforts.

It offers direction for collaborative efforts, providing goals and objectives in three crucial areas: education and outreach; stewardship, and policy and protection.

“Don’t take the document in one sitting,” says Roger LaBine, Manoomin Chief of the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. “It was a document drafted with input by many and captures the heart of the whole group. It outlines well what the goals and objectives should be and where we need to go. There’s a lot of knowledge that needs to be digested, absorbed and thought about.”