lease, which began in 1967, ended in August 2017. The Mashkiiziibii Natural Resources Department´s task is to facilitate “the development of institutions of tribal self-governance to ensure the continued sovereignty of the Bad River Tribe in the regulation and management of its natural resources”. and has responded to numerous threats posed by Enbridge Line 5 pipeline. Reservation The Bad River Reservation is primarily located on the south shore of Lake Superior and is nearly entirely covered by a forest and swamps. The reservation also includes a small area on the eastern tip of Madeline Island. Bad River is the largest Ojibwe reservation in Wisconsin and the second largest Indian reservation in the state, after the Menominee Indian Reservation. In Anishinaabemowin, they called the Anishinaabe people who lived around swamps Omashkiigowag ("Swampy people"), from mashkiig meaning "swamp". The people also go by Mashkigonaabeg, which means "Swampy-men:, where the suffix -naabe is "male" or "man" in the Anishinaabe language. Geography According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the reservation has a total area of 197.09 square miles (510.46km2), of which 193.11 square miles (500.16km2) is land and 3.98 square miles (10.3km2) is water. Less than 50% of the reservation land was tribally-owned as of 2010, with the remainder owned by individually by tribal members and outside purchasers due to historic allotment under the Dawes Act. of the reservation are high-quality wetlands due to the Kakagon Sloughs and Bad River sloughs; they are registered by the United States government as wetlands of international importance under the Ramsar Convention. The wetlands are ideal for the cultivation of wild rice, the historical crop of the Ojibwe. The sloughs constitute the only remaining extensive coastal wild rice marsh in the Great Lakes region. Due to its habitat and proximity to Madeline Island, Bad River is of major importance to the Ojibwe Nation. People from all over Ojibwe Country come for the annual August Celebration of the manoomin, or wild rice harvest. On the northern border of the Reservation, the elevation tends to be between above sea level. To the south, the elevation increases to between above sea level. Scattered across the reservation are many small lakes. Reservation demographics As of the census of 2020, the population of the Bad River Reservation was 1,545. The population density was . There were 625 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the reservation was 76.1%