Winona LaDuke Quotes

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Winona LaDuke (August 18, 1959) is an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) economist, environmentalist, writer and industrial hemp grower, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, as well as sustainable development.

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One time I was sitting in Sitka, Alaska—did you ever get a chance to go there? Beautiful. Like sometimes you just go someplace. I was at a writers’ workshop. I was in Sitka, Alaska, and I was watching—you know, the eagles were capturing the salmon that had come in. And so there was like eagles diving down into the ocean, and, you know, the salmon. And there were bears. And I looked out there, and I saw this cruise ship coming into the left of my vision. And it came in, and I was like, “Oh, I don’t like that.” The cruise ship came in, and then I watched that cruise ship turn a 180 and go exactly back out. And that’s basically what we’ve got to do. You know, we have to make the next economy, and that next economy is going to be green. That next economy is going to have people like me making decisions. I’d like to be an architect for the next economy. I didn’t like the last one.

Enbridge was 28% of DAPL. And when the federal court ordered them to close down the pipe, they said no. When the state of Michigan ordered them to close down a pipe this last May, they said no. So they’re just trying to continue their egregious behavior.

There is a direct relationship between the loss of cultural diversity and the loss of biodiversity. Wherever Indigenous peoples still remain, there is also a corresponding enclave of biodiversity.

So the next economy has to be something that reaffirms our relationship to the Earth and gives us a shot. That, to me, looks like a lot of local food, organic food.

Native American teachings describe the relations all around-animals, fish, trees, and rocks as our brothers, sisters, uncles, and grandpas. Our relations to each other, our prayers whispered across generations to our relatives, are what bind our cultures together.

I always greet people in my language because I believe that cultural diversity is as beautiful as biodiversity, and that is reflected in language.

You know, you don’t need some guys to put something in the sky to keep the carbon out of the sky. You need to put it in the soil. And so you need organic agriculture. That’s what we’re doing in my community.

Within a decade of the completion of the La Grande Complex, signs of environmental disasters have become obvious. Massive flooding had once again leached methyl Mercury from the soil, changing an inorganic Mercury compound in the water into organic mercury.