Groups fight to preserve future of Michigan’s indigenous wild rice

An origin story, a teacher of life, a relative, and a source of crucial nutrition, manoomin now has a new protector. 

Once covering much of Michigan’s inland lakes and streams, the wild rice (also known as mnoomin or mnomen) is indigenous to the Great Lakes region but has largely disappeared due to colonization, environmental degradation, and climate change. Today, there is little information about where Michigan’s remaining rice beds exist.

To aid in its restoration across the state, the Michigan Wild Rice Initiative, comprising tribes indigenous to the Great Lakes region, state officials and academic experts, has crafted a stewardship plan. The 122-page plan is believed to be the first of its kind and aims to ensure that Indigenous and non-Indigenous people “live together in a good way with mnomen,” preserving the aquatic grass for future generations. The plan after the state Legislature in 2023 named manoomin as the state’s native grain — the first designation in the nation — and it coincides with a cultural resurgence marked by new manoomin camps, soup cook-offs and summits. 

“T​he goal is to help inspire many Michiganders to connect with manoomin, not just as a resource, but as a relative and form that sacred relationship,” said Vincent Salgado, a University of Michigan researcher who co-authored the report produced by the University of Michigan Water Center. 

The report serves as a living document for manoomin, the “good berry,” blending interviews, photographs, and artwork. The plan emphasizes the importance of revitalizing the tradition of manoomin among Indigenous communities, while inviting non-Indigenous people to “meet” manoomin, a collaboration seen as essential for the grain’s restoration. 

“Meeting” manoomin, which Anishinaabek see as animate, is a full mind-and-body experience. The traditional process is done by hand and is labor intensive. 

Sitting on a boat and gently knocking the stalks with wooden sticks, one can hear whispers of the tiny seeds falling into the boat and the water. Small splashes punctuate as another person gently guides the boat through the water with a long wooden pole. On land, the seeds are parched in an iron kettle over a wood fire until fragrant with nutty aromas. The seeds are “danced” on with moccasins and then thrown into the wind to separate the hulls. Once cooked for eating, each seed stretches out in different directions, some stay straight while others curl up at the ends. The earthy and chewy taste is unlike white rice and is more nutrient-dense, providing essential calories, vitamins, and minerals. 

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“You can’t really appreciate mnomen until you meet it,” co-author Jared Ten Brink, an educational researcher at the University of Michigan and member of the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi, said in the report. 

The document, produced by MWRI in collaboration with all 12 of the state’s federally recognized tribes and various state departments including transportation and agriculture, calls for harvesting regulations for the general public. Currently, there are none, meaning there are no consequences for damaging or overharvesting the sacred grain.

The report calls for a review of whether Michigan should adopt a rule for vendors of manoomin; Minnesota and Wisconsin both require monitoring sustainable harvesting. It also includes a goal of collaborating with the Michigan Department of Education to incorporate Anishinaabe lessons surrounding manoomin in K-12 schools and networking with academics and researchers to elevate Indigenous perspectives in general conservation work. 

Centering Indigenous knowledge is “crucial” in the fight against climate change and in conservation efforts, according to the United Nations. A million species across the globe are at risk of going extinct in the next several decades, but this risk is slowed on Indigenous peoples’ land, according to a UN-backed report, with conservation experts calling on scientists and policymakers to partner with Indigenous peoples to reduce biodiversity loss.  

Ten Brink emphasized that manoomin is a sustainable food source that doesn’t need to be shipped from across the globe or refrigerated and it doesn’t require preservatives to store it. 

“Wild rice is a native plant that grows here. It’s good, it tastes good, and it’s good for you. It could be a local, sustainable food source for our state, and help everybody if we started to really care for it,” he said. “We can do better, and we can start with some of these things, like the food that just grows around us.”

Environmental threats and climate change

On inland waters among the wild rice stalks, Ten Brink offers tobacco and asks for permission before harvesting the rice, as is tradition. Entering with good intentions, he takes just a third of the crop, leaving one-third for the birds and one-third for next year.

But next year’s crop in wild rice communities across the Midwest is increasingly threatened by climate change. Last year, Wisconsin’s wild rice production was significantly below average due to a mild winter and heavy storms made more likely by climate change, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. How Michigan’s wild rice fared is unknown – the new report calls for metrics to analyze the health of manoomin beds in Michigan that balance Western and Indigenous methodology.  

“With climate change, more extreme rainfall happens, causing a lot more runoff into those inland lakes and creeks,” said Shel Winkley, a Climate Central weather and climate engagement specialist and meteorologist. “That brings a host of problems.” 

From rising water levels to fertilizer-contaminated runoff and more potential for harmful algal blooms, to less ice coverage and warmer water, it all “stresses the ecosystem” he said. 

Warming water temperatures decrease dissolved oxygen and make it harder for manoomin stalks to grow and produce seed. Reduced ice coverage, warming summers, and more humid nights increase the threat of disease and takeover of perennial plants. Michigan summers have warmed by an average of 2.6 degrees since 1970, according to data from climate communications nonprofit Climate Central. More frequent and intense storms threaten to uproot the rice beds and wash away pollen, reducing the chance of pollination success. 

To survive a warming climate caused by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels, like many species, manoomin will have to migrate north in search of cooler temperatures, and require the assistance of humans to move the seeds. 

“Without human aid, migrating will be challenging for them,” report authors note. 

Climate change is just one environmental threat manoomin faces in addition to agricultural runoff, dam construction and mining. 

Ten Brink said more manooomin was found in the upper peninsula before the sensitive plant was destroyed by heavy pollution from the mining industry.

And some Southeast Michiganders worry about radioactive waste from nuclear energy harming manoomin. 

In March, nearly 200 people from the state’s Indigenous communities and non-Indigenous community members, activists, and artists gathered at the North American Indian Association of Detroit for the third annual manoomin soup cook-off, uplifting the environmental threat of nuclear energy and radioactive waste to wild rice. 

The event is hosted by Jesse Deer In Water, who is an organizer for Citizens’ Resistance At Fermi Two (CRAFT), an Indigenous anti-nuclear organization formed after an accident at DTE Energy’s Fermi 2 nuclear power plant released a million gallons of radioactive waste in the 1990s. Fermi 2 accounts for approximately 20% of the electricity DTE generates in Michigan, according to the utility’s website. 

“If human communities do not heal relations to their place and to each other, manoomin will struggle to flourish,” report authors wrote. 

Reseeding

In the 1800s, there were 212 historical wild rice sites in Michigan, but now just about a dozen are known to exist for the sacred relative.  

“Water and Manoomin are the only relatives who are brought to every ceremony. Manoomin is often the first solid food an Anishinaabe child eats, and Manoomin is often the final meal for Anishinaabe Elders as they prepare to walk from this world to the next. This close bond with Manoomin nurtures a heightened spiritual relationship with the relative. Thus, Manoomin are sacred medicine who nourish mind, emotion, body, and spirit,” the report reads. 

To address the many challenges to manoomin restoration, the stewardship plan was created through UM’s Water Center and authored by Salgado, Jennifer Read, and Ten Brink with $100,000 in funding from Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, and funding from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

Other goals are to develop a “neighborhood watch program” where local leaders are taught how to watch over manoomin beds and remind people of its importance, and to create new legal protections.  

“It is increasingly clear that supporting the wellbeing of manoomin will also need legal reinforcement,” authors write. 

The report authors are also urging laws that restrict non-Indigenous harvest access until certain restoration conditions are met and working with the state Legislature to recognize manoomin as “beings with inherent rights and possessing legal protections equal to ones for humans.”

In other communities across the country, tribes have designated “personhood” to the Klamath River, wild rice, and, in New Zealand, a mountain in efforts to extend legal rights to the entities and protection from pipelines and development. 

Salgado said the MWRI isn’t seeking personhood for Michigan manoomin, however. In Western understandings, he said, humans are seen at the top, but in Anishinaabek beliefs it’s the opposite. 

“Humans are the weakest in Anishinaabek philosophy, because we’re dependent on everyone else’s gifts, but every other relatives’ gifts, every other relative can live without us,” said Salgado. “What humans have to do is start learning to respect their place.” 

The report includes best stewardship practices, a compilation of manoomin-related laws and regulations in the region, tribal codes, and more. 

In October, after the rice season, the MWRI is planning to host a summit to bring together NOAA officials and manoomin advocates from Wisconsin and Minnesota to build relationships. The summit was originally planned for April, but was moved due to the Trump administration’s cuts to NOAA’s budget. 

At some point in the future, the Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan plans to open up one or two jobs for carrying out the work of the stewardship plan and MWRI, Salgado said. 

Ten Brink said it’s important to him to build a strong connection between wild rice and Michigan. 

“When I look at the report, to me the most important thing is having that strong identity of wild rice is a Michigan Great Lakes thing. We don’t have that right now,” said Ten Brink.

Authors of the report stress that it isn’t a management guide and that manoomin isn’t a “resource” but a relative and teacher that needs to be listened to. 

“Even though there are people who have good intentions to help restore a relative, we have to be careful that we don’t try to assert dominance of our relative,” said Salgado. 

So where they may try to reseed an area with wild rice, the grain might respond that it doesn’t want to be there, which stewards will listen to and learn from. 

“We want to be able to restore manoomin wherever manoomin chooses to live,” said Salgado.