As part of NPR's Climate Week, WUWM radio reporter Susan Bence spoke with UMN Graduate Fellow Nisogaabokwe Melonee Montano and her father, Anakwad Frank Montano, who are members of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
They talked about their relationships to land, water, and fire; Anishinaabe land management; and Nisogaabokwe's work as a traditional ecological knowledge outreach specialist and student in our department's Tribal Natural Resource Track, which joins Indigenous knowledge and western science. This program "allows for Indigenous knowledge to be incorporated into research and focus and work and everything,” Nisogaabokwe told WUWM.
One way this is being practiced is through a collaboration between the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (where she works), tribal representatives, and the University on research topics such as manoomin (wild rice). "The University of Minnesota and the tribes and GLIFWC and everybody is at the table together ...deciding what needs to be researched but also the approaches and how to do it," Nisogaabokwe shared.
Learn more by reading the article on WUWM's website: https://z.umn.edu/90qo
Image description: In a photo, an elderly man with white hair, a blue T-shirt, and glasses sits at a kitchen table next to his daughter, who wears a black zip-up hooded sweater. She also wears glasses and has dark hair pulled into a bun. Both look at the camera and smile with their mouths closed. Above the photo is the text, "Managing landscapes since time immemorial - Indigenous view on climate solutions.'" At the bottom of the image is the logo for WUWM, Milwaukee's Public Radio.