Environmental enthusiasts, from researchers to filmmakers, will gather in Manistee this weekend for the annual
Great Lakes Environmental Festival.
Along with films and presentations, the festival aims to promote environmental stewardship and to encourage the public, especially students and educators, to become involved.
The film festival will be held from 10 a.m. until 5:15 p.m. Saturday at Manistee High School, 512 12th St., Manistee. The weekend includes other events: A welcome and introduction at 4 p.m. Friday at Hardy Hall at the Ramsdell Regional Center for the Arts in Manistee; and an environmental worship service is slated at 10 a.m. Sunday at the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Manistee.
The festival was established in 2008 in Bay City and relocated to Manistee in 2021. The festival is expected to inspire other people to think about ecology and the value of natural resources of the Great Lakes region.
Running the festival area are couple Ziggy Kozicki and Stephanie Bayasai, who have created such films as
Return of Native Sturgeon in Michigan. The film will be shown at the festival, whose theme this year is water. Saturday also happens to be World Water Day.
“The environment is something we all share,” Kozicki says. “We consider it is in every person’s interest to learn about the current state of the Great Lakes Region.”
Pollution
Films and documentaries can be an influential way to convey an important message to an audience.
In his film, Andrew Slagter, director of
Restoration to Reconciliation | Plaster Creek Stewards, highlights a community group called
Plaster Creek Stewards. The film showcases the organization's work by engaging the community through workshops, school partnerships, events, and research to get the full scope of the pollution and solutions for restoring the watershed.
He became fascinated with the organization after taking a class that focused on a case study about Plaster Creek at Calvin University in Grand Rapids.
“I thought it was a very interesting approach to combining community with science as opposed to it just being a bunch of statistics and people with super qualified degrees doing research,” Slagter says.
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Courtesy of the Great Lakes Environmental FestivalLitter found in Plaster Creek, the subject of a film being shown at the Great Lakes Environmental Festival.One of the things that stood out to him before filming was learning that Plaster Creek is one of the most polluted waterways in West Michigan. Originally, the
watershed was used by Native Americans and was named Ken-O-Sha or “Water of the Walleye,” as a source of fishing. Not long after settlement by Europeans, the creek became a mining area due to its high volume of gypsum, which is used in plaster and other construction materials. This is what kicked off the high pollution of the watershed, along with modern urbanization and storm runoff.
When you see all these environmental disasters, sometimes you can become desensitized, Slagter says. It wasn’t until he began creating the film that he was faced with reality.
“Each location that I had gone to had an insane amount of pollution and trash and that demonstrated to me how real this issue is,” Slagter says. “It’s very easy to not really realize that if you aren’t going out there to look at it because we tuck those areas far away.”
He hopes that showing how Plaster Creek Stewards are working to restore the watershed will inspire people to care about their local environment. And not just in the meantime, but for future generations to come.
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Courtesy of Great Lakes Environmental FestivalMembers of Plaster Creek Stewards, a group working to protect Plaster Creek.“It’s very easy to forget that what we put into our water upstream will affect people downstream,” Slagter says. “Looking from a broader perspective of sustainability messaging and practice, I think the community approach is how we can get long-lasting behavioral changes that actually result in change for conservation.”
Federal recognition
Slagter isn’t the only Calvin University student showing a film at this year's festival.
Andrew Doyle, a senior studying film and media, directed
Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians - Voices of the Grand River, after learning about the group in his persuasion propaganda class.
“It’s really about wanting to tell people’s stories that drives me into wanting to make films,” Doyle says.
Doyle’s film highlights the story and struggles of the
Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians, who have been fighting to gain federal recognition.
In Michigan,
only 12 tribes are considered federally recognized, leaving those nations that aren’t to fend for themselves when it comes to resources for public safety, health care, and other issues. There are many
steps to becoming federally recognized, often through documentation like treaties, acts of Congress, or other federal administrative actions.
“They’ve gone to Washington, D.C, and they’ve gotten all the documents they have, but you need to have documents that go back to your ancestry to say that you’re a part of the tribe,” he says. “But more and more people are dying, so it’s hard to keep that going.”
Through this film, Doyle hopes the audience can begin to understand the Ottawa culture, especially those in the Grand Rapids area who may not know of this community that is their neighbor.
Other films to be shown at the festival include:
Sacred Waters: Anishinaabeg Naagdawenmaanaanig Giigoonhkewin (The First People Taking Care of the Fishery), directed by Josh Hovey, and
Bad River: The Struggle to Protect Water and Indigenous Rights, written and directed by Mary Mazzio.
The festival will not only feature films but also a variety of speakers. Keynote speaker Corey Jerome will talk about Native American environmental stewardship. Other guests include Julia Chambers from
A Few Friends for the Environment of the World, and Tyler Dula from the
Manistee Conservation District.
“We look forward to people to develop their understanding about water as an asset that must be valued,” Kozicki says. “GLEF is a grass roots effort to become aware and active in respecting and managing the natural environment we all share.”
Genevieve Fox is an award-winning journalist from Detroit. She recently graduated from Michigan State University with a bachelor’s in journalism with a concentration on environment, science and health policy. Previously, she was a reporter with Great Lakes Echo and WKAR radio. She loves spending time outdoors and reading a good book.