GLIFWC Background

Through the Treaties of 1836, 1837, 1842, and 1854, Ojibwe tribes ceded territories across northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan to the United States (U.S.). These treaties guaranteed the tribes certain hunting, fishing, and gathering rights throughout these Ceded Territories to ensure the tribes could continue their way of life to meet subsistence, economic, cultural, spiritual, and medicinal needs. The U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts have affirmed the tribes’ treaty rights within the Ceded Territories.

The Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) is an intertribal natural resource agency comprised of eleven federally recognized tribal governments1. It was established in 1984 to assist its member tribes in implementing their treaty rights by providing support in the conservation and management of the natural resources subject to those rights, and protecting the habitats and ecosystems that support those resources. GLIFWC exercises delegated authority from its eleven member tribes regarding their treaty reserved hunting, fishing, and gathering rights.

GLIFWC’s member tribes depend on healthy ecosystems and the fish, plants, and wildlife that these ecosystems support. This dependence is different and to a greater degree than that of the general population. For Ojibwe people, ties to the natural world are such that damage to natural resources results in alteration of tribal culture. Conversely, protection and restoration of natural resources can restore, protect, and enhance the ability of tribes to exercise and perpetuate cultural identity, beliefs, and traditions. If natural resources fail to be used by Ojibwe people in accordance with their culture and traditions, those resources will no longer be provided by the Creator. Therefore, the ultimate act of stewardship for tribal members is the exercise of the natural resource harvest that is at the heart of their bimaadiziwin, or traditional lifeway, as guaranteed by treaty.