Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians P.O. Box 70 Bowler, WI 54416 715-793-4111
	Environment
	Greg Bunker, Environmentalist greg.bunker@mohican-nsn.gov W12991 County Road A Bowler, WI 54416 Phone: (715) 793-4363 Fax: (715) 793-5118    Ginny Terrio, Environmental Technician Luke Hennigan, Hydrologist ginny.terrio@mohican-nsn.gov water@mohican-nsn.gov Phone: (715) 793-4819 Phone: (715) 793-4818

The Stockbridge-Munsee Tribal Environmental Department has many duties and responsibilities. Overall, we see our position in the Tribal structure as preserving the natural resources in a pristine condition for the next seven generations. Working with our forestry and conservation committees and with other tribal departments, we strive to protect, maintain and where necessary, improve the health of the natural environment within the reservation. This must be seen as doing more than maintaining the waters in a condition that allows fishing trout and maintaining the forest for timber harvest and the hunting of deer. We must take notice of all the creatures that depend upon these resources; whether or not they are of economic or recreational value to us.

Most people remember what the forest and rivers were like in their childhood and they believe that is the way the forest and rivers should be. However, that is often not the case. If the people of seven generations ago would look at the reservation now, would they approve of our stewardship of the land? Could they even recognize the land? What will the people seven generations from now see? The land has suffered change through many generations. Land and water that cannot sustain the creatures that go un-noticed by the average person, will not sustain the species that we seek in our fishing, hunting or gathering. Who among us takes notice of the salamanders, the slugs, or the purple-fringed orchids? Is the diminutive deer mouse as important as the deer? Is a minnow as important as the trout? Do we desire the cardinals at our window while we despise the blackbirds? Many people noticed only a fraction of the life around them, and of what they do see they divide into the “good’ and the “bad”. Within the environmental department we do not ask that you love wood ticks or snakes, but we do ask that you recognize and respect that they are as much a part of the creator's plan and a part of the resources as those things you do love.

Our goal in the Environmental Department is to research what our reservation was like seven generations ago, and by using education, laws and wise management tools, insuring that in seven generations the land will be like it was in the past. The Environmental Department must take into consideration the growing needs of an expanding community and balance those with the need to maintain the natural environment. We view this as not only including our responsibility to the resources within the reservation, but also our responsibility of being a good national and global partner with all people and all nations in resource protection.

Thus, as the department grows we will be looking towards projects that not only protect and enhance the natural resources of the reservation, but also assist tribal members in living a life that reduces our demands on the natural resources of the rest of the world. We should not preserve our own natural resources only to depend upon and overuse resources from the rest of the world. We must live lightly on the earth, use less, give more, and live a life that allows the next seven generations to sustain themselves.

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