And this will be edited and all that fancy stuff, and then anything you can't answer.
You can just move on from it.
So thank you so much for this interview today on behalf of PBS Wisconsin and also ICT Indian
Country Today.
All of my stories are also shared with Indian Country Today, who has the biggest news platform
for indigenous news here in the US.
So thank you.
To start, for our records, can I have you slowly say and spell your first and last name?
First name is Jason, J-A-S-O-N, last name is Schlender, S-C-H-L-E-N-D-E-R.
And also for our records, can I have you confirm your tribal affiliation?
Yeah, I'm an enrolled citizen of the LeCudre Band of Ojibwe.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
And your full title in this job, in this role.
Currently, I am the executive administrator of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife
Commission.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
So we'll start with the gas leak first, but just in a broad sense.
Can you tell me about the overall work that this organization does?
Yeah, so Glyphic has been where it was formed in 1984.
And our role is to assist the tribes in implementing their treaty rights.
Treaties that were signed by tribes with the United States, going back to the mid-1800s.
In addition to that, we provide expertise and knowledge on specific areas, enforcement,
biological services, intergovernmental affairs, public information, and planning and development.
So those areas are there to, those resources are available to assist our member tribes.
And so we operate based on the delegated authority of those, delegated sovereign authority
of those tribes.
In regards to Enbridge and the gas leak that's affecting the nearby Bad River community,
tell me about really some of the work and the early conversations with just the talk
of having this pipeline here.
Well, the pipeline has been around for a long time, and so we support Bad River in their
effort to, in their personal fight to not have Line 5 go through their boundaries.
So they have, they're currently in litigation with that, are about that.
And there's been this, now this reroute.
And so it goes around the reservation, boundaries, but still it kind of goes through the watershed.
So our role in that is that we have environmental specialists that monitor different areas of
what we call the seated territory.
So we do not function within the reservation boundaries that try specifically Bad River.
You know, that's there exists within our own sovereign capacity.
So we operate off the reserve, outside the reservation boundaries, and so we assist them
in monitoring sites and areas that are of concern and have always been of value to
the tribes.
So that's environmental awareness and protection, habitat and ecosystems and things like that,
being able to assess and monitor those things.
Because ultimately it's, it's our role is to ensure that the resources which the tribes
harvest is clean and sustainable.
So that's our, that's our role.
So the real quick, can you put your phone on airplane, you know, that's, that's my watch.
I can just take it off.