Climate Change Contributes to Loss of Wild Rice (Manoomin/Psiŋ), Threatening Indigenous Lifeways

Abstract Climate change threatens lifeways of Indigenous Peoples, impacting their rights to self-determination and sovereignty. In the Laurentian Great Lakes region, Indigenous communities have experienced declines of wild rice (Ojibwemowin: Manoomin; Dakodiapi: Psiŋ; Latin: Zizania palustris), a sacred plant central to their culture. Past studies have implicated climate change in these declines but without quantification. Leveraging long-term, large-scale monitoring data collected by tribal organizations, we analyzed wild rice density and harvest data in relation to key climate conditions expected to impair wild rice’s vulnerable early life stages. Our results indicate that wild rice available for tribal harvest off-reservations has declined regionally by ~ 5–7% annually and likely will continue in part due to anthropogenic climate change, specifically increased early summer precipitation and warmer winters with less snow and shorter ice-duration. This decline has infringed on Indigenous lifeways by reducing off-reservation tribal harvest, a right guaranteed by treaties with the US government.