The University of Montana welcomes Winona LaDuke: University of Montana’s Presidential Lecture Series to The Wilma with the support of Logjam Presents for a FREE event on Tuesday, February 26, 2018. Admittance for this event free and available on a first come, first served basis.
About Winona LaDuke: University of Montana’s Presidential Lecture Series
Winona LaDuke is a rural development economist and author working on issues of Indigenous Economics, Food and Energy Policy. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is the Executive Director of Honor the Earth (HtE). She co-founded HtE with the Indigo Girls, as a platform to raise awareness of and money for indigenous struggles for environmental justice. She works nationally and internationally on the issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice alongside Indigenous communities. In her own community, she is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, Anishinaabe Agriculture Institute, and Akiing: 8th Fire Project. She also runs Winona’s Hemp and Heritage Farm. Globally and nationally, Winona is known as a leader in the issues of cultural-based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy, and sustainable food systems. She is one of the leaders in the work of protecting Indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering.
LaDuke’s work on food systems includes; the creation of Native Harvest, protection of wild rice (manoomin), and the promotion of food sovereignty for reservation communities. On her farm in northern Minnesota, she grows traditional varieties of corn, beans, squash, Jerusalem artichokes, melons, herbs, and tobacco. This work is documented, in part, in the book Food is Medicine, available from Honor the Earth. Work on the restoration of traditional corn varieties has received significant support from the USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, and a number of private foundations. In 2015 -2016, LaDuke and Honor the Earth completed a Mille Lacs Band Tribal Food Plan including policy and implementation plans for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.
LaDuke’s work in renewable energy includes the completion of the White Earth Tribal Energy Plan and support for the installation of solar and wind energy systems on the White Earth reservation. Akiing and Honor the Earth are also collaborating to bring a solar thermal panel manufacturing facility to the White Earth Reservation. Through collaborations between Honor the Earth and Solar Energy International, she has also contributed to installs on the Navajo and Western Shoshone reservations and territories.
In 2007, LaDuke was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, recognizing her leadership and commitment to her community. In 1994, LaDuke was nominated by Time magazine as one of America’s fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age. She has been awarded the Thomas Merton Award in 1996, Ms.Woman of the Year (with the Indigo Girls) in l997, and the Reebok Human Rights Award, with which in part she began the White Earth Land Recovery Project. The White Earth Land Recovery Project has won many awards- including the prestigious 2003 International Slow Food Award for Biodiversity, recognizing the organization’s work to protect wild rice from patenting and genetic engineering. LaDuke was a co-founder, and Board Co-Chair of the Indigenous Women’s Network for fifteen years, and maintains a significant role in international advocacy for Indigenous people. This has included numerous presentations at United Nations forums, and involvement in opposition to mega projects impacting Indigenous Communities.
A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, she has written extensively on Native American and environmental issues. She also attended the Massachussets Institute of Technology in the Community Fellows Program. The author of six books, including Recovering the Sacred, All our Relations. a novel-Last Standing Woman, and her newest work The Winona LaDuke Chronicles. She is widely recognized for her work on environmental and human rights issues.
Common lecture topics:
● Creating a Multi-Cultural Democracy: Religion, Culture, and Identity in America
● Recovering the Sacred: An American Holy Land, and Non-Christian Faith in America
● The Next Energy Economy: Grassroots Strategies to Mitigate Global Climate Change, and How We Move Ahead
● Seed Sovereignty: Who Owns the Seeds of the World, Bio-Piracy, Genetic Engineering and Indigenous Peoples
● Water is life/love water, not oil: Opposing the Enbridge Corporation in Northern Minnesota
● Hemp Futures: Re-establishing the hemp economy in Northern Minnesota