Management Regimes
Authority to regulate and manage the harvest of natural wild rice primarily rests within state and tribal institutions across the Upper Great Lakes Region in the United States (U.S.). Minnesota and Wisconsin are the only two states in the U.S. to regulate the harvest of wild rice, and both delegate that authority to their respective Departments of Natural Resources through state statutes (Minnesota 84.15 and Wisconsin 29.607). “Tribal governments in Minnesota and Wisconsin maintain jurisdiction over harvest of wild rice within reservation boundaries and treaty agreements between certain tribal bands and the U.S. government reserve harvesting rights for those tribal members within the territories ceded (*Treaty Ceded Territory Boundaries are estimates only). 
The gathering of wild rice is influenced by the jurisdictional systems present in the landscape. Harvesters in Minnesota are not allowed to gather wild rice in Wisconsin, yet Wisconsin harvesters may gather wild rice in Minnesota, with the appropriate license. Tribal members may be required to obtain more than one license if gathering wild rice within reservation borders and off-reservation. Understanding harvester movement and use of the wild rice landscape requires an understanding of the access rights and regulations for harvesters across the region under different jurisdictional systems.
Management through regulation of wild rice harvesting by the states began in the mid 1900’s. Minnesota passed a law in 1939 (c.231) relating to the protection of wild rice in public waters and granting Native Americans the right to harvest wild rice on specified waters. This was also the first year licenses were required by both Native Americans and non-Natives to harvest wild rice. Wisconsin wild rice laws go back to the early 1960’s, with the state reporting 498 harvesting licenses sold in 1960, the first year they were required. Management of wild rice by the tribes has a much longer history, including sowing lakes with seed, bundling of plants, and family rights to certain rice beds. Regulating the harvest through opening and closing of the rice beds is a tradition still carried out today on many of the reservation lakes.
Treaty-based institutions arose in both Wisconsin and Minnesota as a result of U.S. Court cases which upheld the rights of the signatory Ojibwe bands to hunt, fish, and gather on lands ceded through specific treaties. The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, representing the treaty rights of eleven Ojibwe nations in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, “provides natural resource management expertise, conservation enforcement, legal and policy analysis, and public information services” in relation to the 1836, 1837, 1842 and 1854 treaties (GLIFWC 2007). In Minnesota the 1854 Treaty Authority resulted from an out of court agreement with the state of Minnesota in 1988 pertaining to a suit filed by the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa regarding tribal hunting and fishing rights. The 1854 Treaty Authority implements the agreement for the Grand Portage and Bois Forte Bands.
Management and regulation of wild rice and wild rice harvest is complex because multiple jurisdictions are involved. Agencies/authorities represented in this landscape study include the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), 1854 Treaty Authority (1854), Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MDNR), Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe (LLBO) and the Sokaogon Chippewa Community of Mole Lake (SCC). Each of these authorities is involved in wild rice management and regulation of harvesters, but at varied scales. At the state level, Minnesota (and Wisconsin) defines the state as the vested owner of all wild rice growing in public waters (M.S. 84.091, W.S. 29.607), covering an area involving millions of acres. The smallest institutions in this the study, LLBO and SCC, regulate wild rice management over much smaller areas (Figure 2-1). In the case of the SCC that area is only 1,720 acres and includes Rice Lake. Completely contained within the borders of the Mole Lake Reservation, this 212 acre lake and the rice it sustains, is considered essential to perpetuating the tribal culture of the Sokaogon Chippewa Community.