Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
Volume 10, Number 1 • January-February 2002
Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat NewsThe Newsletter of the Great Lakes
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Maria Maybee
Great Lakes United
The Flintsteel Restoration Association was formed in 1995 as a grassroots organization dedicated to restoring the relationship between people and the land. With a majority of the Board of Directors being tribal members, the organization has a special interest in tribal environmental education and protection.
This year the organization is developing a program to train tribal members to participate in monitoring reservation coastal wetland locations on Lake Superior, using tools such as the Great Lakes Marsh Monitoring Program. The organization strongly believes in empowerment of the persons most closely attached to a particular place.
To create that “sense of place,” especially among young tribal activists, is the most powerful protection tool we can hope to develop. For example, in the past a Maple Syrup Making workshop allowed young tribal members to collect maple sap with reservation elders and learn about this important traditional cultural resource. Armed with knowledge and tradition, these young tribal members went on to successfully petition their respective Tribal Council to stop poor logging practices on the Reservation that threatened tribal sugar maple stands.
Flintsteel Restoration Association has also initiated a tribal science mentoring program that trains tribal members (ages 18 and up) in water quality protection and the ecological sciences. Two tribal members who participated in the program now work for their respective tribal governments in Natural Resource Management. A third tribal student has been nominated for a full scholarship under the US Bureau of Indian Affairs Water Resource Technician Program. For more information contact Dave Anderson, Executive Director of Flintsteel Restoration Association, at 906-229-5074, or visit www.flintsteel.org.
[Excerpt from River Network Stream Lines, Winter 2001, Special Tribal Issue]
With support from the Environmental Protection Agency, River Network has produced Listening to Watersheds, a culturally integrated guidebook by Angie Reed and Geoff Dates. The book combines Native and western science to walk users through a six-part process for designing and implementing a watershed assessment, beginning with the development of a “Cultural Ecosystem Story.”
This process, developed by the Tulalip Tribes of Washington State, encourages users to gather the knowledge embedded in the stories and observations of tribal members. The manual also incorporates information gathered by state and federal agencies, schools, community groups, and others.
The approach is illustrated throughout the publication by a turtle with a six-plated shell. Each plate represents a step in the process. The chapter titles – “Why”, “What”, “Where”, “When”, “Who”, and “How” – form a path that leads to information that is essential to the Indigenous People who live as part of their watershed ecosystems. “The question ‘Why’ is the most crucial, so it’s placed at the center with the other five questions building on it in a spiral pattern,” said Reed.
For more information, contact Angie Reed, River Watch Science & Tribal Services Manager, at (207)-532-2480 or areed@rivernetwork.org.