Saginaw Chippewa Tribal member Michael McCreery discusses the Anishinaabe Way and best practices for protecting water

Saginaw Chippewa Tribal member Michael McCreery discusses the Anishinaabe Way and best practices for protecting water

Future of water

Michael McCreery describes water practices within the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe and suggests best practices for use in today's society to protect water.

Michael McCreery

Clarke Historical Library

2022

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MP4 video

English

2:56

The Anishinaabe way has been spoke of by Chief Leonard Isaac in the 1980s in a Bay City Times article, he called himself the Chief of all the Chiefs outside of the Reservation. He was looking for members to examine themselves, if they really wanted to have maturity its okay to have one foot in both worlds basically -- the current age and the ancient age -- to use your wisdom, your ancient wisdom along with the best practices that are being used in today's society. So, between those two elders with their statements and what the EPA is saying, the best practices that we should or shouldn't be using from the rain and snow melting how that penetrates the surface -- like the paved streets, parking lots, rooftops for example -- that has impairments on our water. The high runoff including the sediment, the nutrients, the bacteria, the pathogens, the debris, and household harmful waste add up over time. So those stories together in combination with practices that you can do like checking your septic tank, cleaning up after your pet waste, making your own rain garden -- a grassy swell to help protect Mother Earth cleanses that water coming off the roof from those rain gardens -- cleaning up the trash so its not out in the field. There's many different ways that we can simply do our best to make our own habitat better and environment. I want to close with we all need to be wise, think about our daily decisions to make solutions to help heal our water Nbiish on an individual basis. We can educate others with what we do know, and how to respect the water because it is precious and sacred and should be protected. I guess that's my challenge is to put out to all those that are listening, take an opportunity in your own daily life and think about how you can help cleanse our water to heal our land. Thank you, Michael McCreery.