Commonly known by its acronym, GLIFWC, the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission is an agency of eleven Ojibwe nations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, with offreservation treaty rights to hunt, fish and gather in treaty-ceded lands. It exercises powers delegated by its member tribes.
GLIFWC assists its member bands in the implementation of off-reservation treaty seasons and in the protection of treaty rights and the natural resources. GLIFWC provides natural resource management expertise, conservation enforcement, legal and policy analysis, and public information services.
GLIFWC's member tribes include: the Bay Mills Indian Community, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and the Lac Vieux Desert Band in Michigan; the Bad River, Red Cliff, Lac du Flambeau, Lac Courte Oreilles, Sokaogon and St. Croix Bands in Wisconsin; the Fond du Lac and Mille Lacs tribes in Minnesota. All member tribes retained hunting, fishing and gathering rights in treaties with the U.S. government, including the 1836, 1837, 1842, and 1854 Treaties.
GLIFWC's Board of Commissioners, comprised of a representative from each member tribe, provides the direction and policy for the organization. Recommendations are made to the Board of Commissioners from several standing committees, including the Voigt Intertribal Task Force (VITF) and the Lakes Committee.
The VITF was formed following the 1983 Voigt decision and makes recommendations regarding the management of the fishery in inland lakes and wild game and wild plants in treaty-ceded lands of Wisconsin. The Lakes Committee recommends on matters pertaining to the management of the Lake Superior fishery and related issues.
GLIFWC's central office is located in Odanah, Wisconsin, on the Bad River reservation. Satellite conservation enforcement offices are located on most member reservations, and a satellite office of the Biological Services Division is located in Madison, Wisconsin.
Services provided through GLIFWC are summarized below:
Administration: All policies approved through the Board of Commissioners are implemented through GLIFWC's Administration Division, which also includes budgeting and financial management for the organization. As such, administrative tasks involve both in-house accounting and record-keeping, coordination of meetings and planning for anticipated needs of member tribes, as well as annual testimony before Congress which seeks appropriations to maintain and improve GLIFWC's funding base.
Biological Management: GLIFWC provides a staff of biologists and technicians which assist in coordinating offreservation harvest seasons and supply the technical expertise and data required in determining appropriate harvest regulations and in making resource management decisions.
Enforcement: GLIFWC provides fully-trained and equipped conservation wardens, stationed in the area of each member tribe, to assure that the triballyadopted codes regulating each off-reservation season are enforced. In addition, GLIFWC assists tribal courts where conservation violations are cited.
Intergovernmental Affairs: To further tribal self-regulatory capabilities, this office supplies the expertise necessary to formulate legally-acceptable codes and ordinances; interpret pertinent legislation which may affect offreservation resources; and advise on issues pertaining to treaty rights.
Development and Planning: The primary responsibility of the Planning & Development office is to assist the Commission in implementing its Strategic Plan - Wii Gimawanjii'idimin Gaye Wii Nibawaadaanamin. GLIFWC also provides staff who work with member tribes in seeking opportunities to enhance and improve the natural resources and to most beneficially use harvested resources. This involves locating funding sources as well as economic opportunities on behalf of the member tribes.
Public Information: The public information office serves as a vehicle for public education for tribal members and the general public. Through publications, media contacts and information booths, timely, factual information pertaining to tribal off-reservation resource management and treaty harvest is disseminated.
Tribal Courts: GLIFWC assists in the maintenance of tribal courts which are an integral part of self-regulation. Citations issued for violations of offreservation hunting, fishing and gathering codes are heard in tribal courts where penalties are imposed upon violators.
Tribal Registration Stations: Each member tribe receives financial assistance through GLIFWC for the support of on-reservation registration stations. The stations are sites to obtain permits, necessary tags and to register the harvest. Tom Maulson, Chairman of the GLIFWC Board of Commissioners and the Voigt Intertribal Task Force.
Popular misconceptions about Ojibwe treaty rights
The courts have granted the Indians treaty hunting and fishing rights.
Courts did not give hunting, fishing and gathering rights to the Ojibwe. Those rights were never relinquished. The Ojibwe have always had the hunting, fishing and gathering rights which were reaffirmed in the Wisconsin Voigt decision and the Minnesota 1837 Treaty case. Those rights were retained by the Ojibwe when they ceded land to the United States through treaties made on a government-to-government basis. </p> <p id="indent">Even though the Ojibwe never sold or gave up hunting, fishing and gathering rights, the illegal imposition of state law on tribal hunters/fishermen effectively discouraged offreservation harvest by tribal members in years past, as they were liable to be arrested and prosecuted. This is why the treaty rights needed to be affirmed through court decisions.
Treaty rights are special rights enjoyed by Indians.
Actually the hunting, fishing and gathering rights of the Ojibwe are known legally as usufructuary rights and are a form of property right. Similar property rights include the retention of mineral rights on land when it is sold, or, as in Louisiana, retaining the right to frail for pecans on land that is sold. Usufructuary rights allow people to keep the right to certain uses even though they sell the land. Property rights such as these are enjoyed by us all and are not a special right of Indian people.
The Ojibwe have unlimited hunting, fishing and gathering rights on the ceded lands.
When the Voigt decision first hit the news in Wisconsin, the headlines proclaimed the Ojibwe's treaty rights to be unlimited. This, however, is not true. In fact, the Ojibwe, under the many court rulings in the Voigt case, exercise off-reservation rights in a limited fashion, subject to quotas, seasons and tribally-adopted regulations.
In Minnesota, tribal harvest is also subject to the specifications of adopted court stipulations which limit treaty quotas, establish seasons and place other restrictions on the treaty harvests. Two five-year management plans, one for the fishery and one for wildlife, provide the structure for a limited treaty harvest while safeguarding the resources.
When the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act was passed, the Indian people gave up their tribal citizenship.
This is simply not true, nor should it be. When the Indian people were granted citizenship by the United States, no provisions indicated that they must forfeit their tribal membership.
The Act states that "granting of citizenship under this subsection shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of such person to tribal or other property."
Most U.S. citizens are "dual" citizens simply because they are simultaneously citizens of towns, counties, states, and a nation. Each of these entities maintains a government regulating its citizenry to one extent or another. Similarly, Indian people retain membership in their tribes while also retaining U.S. citizenship.
The treaties signed are old and should not apply to today's circumstances.
Agreements between governments, or individuals, are not invalidated by age. Sometimes new agreements are negotiated if both parties consent, but age alone does not render an agreement or treaty invalid. The U.S. Constitution states that "treaties are the supreme law of the land." Recent federal court decisions define the scope and regulation of treaty rights, making them compatible with contemporary circumstances.
Treaties should only apply to full-blooded Indians.
It is important to remember that treaty rights are not individual rights; they are tribal rights. The rights belong to the tribe as a body. Therefore, a person can exercise the tribally- owned treaty rights only as a member of the tribe under the regulations the tribe has established. Determination of tribal membership is achieved through the tribe, as a sovereign, self-regulating government. Tribes determine membership through varying criteria. Some, for instance, use blood quantum, while others may use birthright. Members of a tribe which was signatory to a treaty reserving hunting, fishing and gathering rights can legally exercise those rights under their tribe's off-reservation ordinances.
The Indians should only be able to use the methods of harvest available at the time of the treaties.
Federal courts have ruled that the Ojibweg may use modern methods of harvest. Nothing in the treaties states that the Ojibweg could not use improved equipment or methods. However, some argue that if the Ojibweg want to exercise rights retained in old treaties, they should use the methods and equipment of that time.
If that argument is pursued, the Ojibweg could likewise insist that all the development and exploitation that has diminished the resources on the ceded lands should be removed as well. Rolling back time for one party of an agreement is neither logical nor fair. If the Ojibweg are to go back in time, then the non-Indian side should also move backwards in time. That would be very costly, indeed.
