Uploaded April 2021 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
I come from, also, where the wild things are. We call it omaa akiing: the land to which the people belong. It is not the concept of private property. The land to which the people belong. Think about that. It's a whole different world view, and that's really what we need to work on having. Where do we belong? What is our covenant? What is our relationship to land and to place, and how are we going to actualize that in our work and what we do?
The land to which the people belong. That is where I come from. But it is also the land where the wild things are. There is that here, too, but where I live you have frogs, you have butterflies, you have all kind of biodiversity. You have wild rice, you have bears, you have mountain lions, and geese and swans and sturgeon. We live where it is good still. They say on a worldwide scale that indigenous people are about 5% of the world's population, but where we live is about 75% of the world's biodiversity.
So I really think it's time for us all to work together. If you want to protect the biodiversity of life, because that's where it comes from - life comes from that - we all need to work together. Our wild rice itself lay dormant in lakes because they were flooded by white people who need to have lake homes and big boats flood our lakes out, bury our rice under there. One lake - no rice for 50 years. another was 17 years and then one day the water levels fell and the rice came back. That tells you something abut the beauty and persistence of seeds and of life itself. So that's where I come from, that is also the place, whether it's the Amazon or the Arctic or Madagascar, those are indigenous peoples' territories. We are everywhere.
--
At 18, Winona Laduke became the youngest person to speak to the United Nations about American Indian concerns. Graduated form Harvard in economics. She realized that the problems afflicting native nations were not endemic to the people but the result of centuries of governmental exploitation, abuse and poor policies. After graduation, LaDuke moved to the White Earth reservation. She started working as the high school’s principal while completing a long-distance MA in Community Economic Development.
When, in 1989, a treaty lawsuit to recover lands promised in 1867 was dismissed, LaDuke founded White Earth Land Recovery Project, which focuses on the recovery, preservation and restoration of both land and traditional practices, with the aim to strengthen spiritual and cultural heritage of the Anishinaabeg people.
In the late 1990s, LaDuke started farming on White Earth and other tribal land. In the last twenty years, part of her work has focused on campaigning against the introduction of genetically modified rice on native land, as well on the construction of several pipelines. She was an important coordinator at Standing Rock, where in 2017, the Sioux Tribe and supporters fought to protect the tribe’s drinking water and ancestral lands from the Dakota Access pipeline.
In early November 2017, she is raising funds to buy land on which she aims to create a hemp and heritage food farm in order to create local wealth and train young people in farming indigenous food.
She has started Winona's Hemp & Heritage Farm winonashemp.com
--
This PSA is made from a 28 minute show:
Winona LaDuke - A Biodiverse Greener Path
youtu.be/l5g3kfzsfWE
--
Tags: Environment, Planet, Economy, Sustainability, Healing, People, Indigenous, Textile, United States, Native American, Agriculture, Farming, Activism, Recovery, Preservation, Restoration,
--
YouTube
youtu.be/iS465r_r_0w
--
Also, this show is available for local public TV stations to broadcast.
Phone your local public TV station (LPTV) to request they broadcast this film to your local community. Your station can download the film in TV broadcast format, HD or SD, from www.PEGMedia.org . This film is available for broadcast from any LPTV station in the country - and world. Stations that use Telvue, DVDs or other media can contact us for instructions.
--
Website & Links
Winona LaDuke
winonaladuke.com
winonashemp.com
Facebook: facebook.com/668299769
Twitter: twitter.com/WinonaLaduke
Flow Kana - About
flowkana.com/about
--
I come from, also, where the wild things are. We call it omaa akiing: the land to which the people belong. It is not the concept of private property. The land to which the people belong. Think about that. It's a whole different world view, and that's really what we need to work on having. Where do we belong? What is our covenant? What is our relationship to land and to place, and how are we going to actualize that in our work and what we do?
The land to which the people belong. That is where I come from. But it is also the land where the wild things are. There is that here, too, but where I live you have frogs, you have butterflies, you have all kind of biodiversity. You have wild rice, you have bears, you have mountain lions, and geese and swans and sturgeon. We live where it is good still. They say on a worldwide scale that indigenous people are about 5% of the world's population, but where we live is about 75% of the world's biodiversity.
So I really think it's time for us all to work together. If you want to protect the biodiversity of life, because that's where it comes from - life comes from that - we all need to work together. Our wild rice itself lay dormant in lakes because they were flooded by white people who need to have lake homes and big boats flood our lakes out, bury our rice under there. One lake - no rice for 50 years. another was 17 years and then one day the water levels fell and the rice came back. That tells you something abut the beauty and persistence of seeds and of life itself. So that's where I come from, that is also the place, whether it's the Amazon or the Arctic or Madagascar, those are indigenous peoples' territories. We are everywhere.
--
At 18, Winona Laduke became the youngest person to speak to the United Nations about American Indian concerns. Graduated form Harvard in economics. She realized that the problems afflicting native nations were not endemic to the people but the result of centuries of governmental exploitation, abuse and poor policies. After graduation, LaDuke moved to the White Earth reservation. She started working as the high school’s principal while completing a long-distance MA in Community Economic Development.
When, in 1989, a treaty lawsuit to recover lands promised in 1867 was dismissed, LaDuke founded White Earth Land Recovery Project, which focuses on the recovery, preservation and restoration of both land and traditional practices, with the aim to strengthen spiritual and cultural heritage of the Anishinaabeg people.
In the late 1990s, LaDuke started farming on White Earth and other tribal land. In the last twenty years, part of her work has focused on campaigning against the introduction of genetically modified rice on native land, as well on the construction of several pipelines. She was an important coordinator at Standing Rock, where in 2017, the Sioux Tribe and supporters fought to protect the tribe’s drinking water and ancestral lands from the Dakota Access pipeline.
In early November 2017, she is raising funds to buy land on which she aims to create a hemp and heritage food farm in order to create local wealth and train young people in farming indigenous food.
She has started Winona's Hemp & Heritage Farm winonashemp.com
--
This PSA is made from a 28 minute show:
Winona LaDuke - A Biodiverse Greener Path
youtu.be/l5g3kfzsfWE
--
Tags: Environment, Planet, Economy, Sustainability, Healing, People, Indigenous, Textile, United States, Native American, Agriculture, Farming, Activism, Recovery, Preservation, Restoration,
--
YouTube
youtu.be/iS465r_r_0w
--
Also, this show is available for local public TV stations to broadcast.
Phone your local public TV station (LPTV) to request they broadcast this film to your local community. Your station can download the film in TV broadcast format, HD or SD, from www.PEGMedia.org . This film is available for broadcast from any LPTV station in the country - and world. Stations that use Telvue, DVDs or other media can contact us for instructions.
--
Website & Links
Winona LaDuke
winonaladuke.com
winonashemp.com
Facebook: facebook.com/668299769
Twitter: twitter.com/WinonaLaduke
Flow Kana - About
flowkana.com/about
--
