A Native American activist, Harvard-educated economist and author, Winona LaDuke has devoted her life to advocating for indigenous people’s rights and environmental justice.
Combining economic and environmental approaches, she works to create a thriving and sustainable community for her own White Earth reservation and for Indigenous populations across the country.
LaDuke attended Harvard University and graduated in 1982 with a degree in rural economic development. While at Harvard, LaDuke’s interest in Native issues grew after attending a presentation by activist and poet Jimmie Durham partnering with him, she spent a summer working on a campaign to stop uranium mining on Navajo land in Nevada, and testified before the United Nations on the exploitation of Indian lands.
In 1989, she founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP) with the funds the Reebok Foundation awarded her for her human rights work. WELRP is an organization aiming to buy back reservation land previously purchased by non-Native people to foster sustainable development and provide economic opportunity for the Abishinaabe. It is now one of the largest reservation-based nonprofits in the country, having successfully bought back thousands of acres.
Winona LaDuke has also been involved with the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline Protests, where she participated in the resistance camps and addressed the media regarding. She led protests in 2020 and 2021 against the Line 3 Pipeline.
Most recently, Winona LaDuke has also devoted herself to the promotion of industrial hemp and marijuana farming, advocating for hemp’s potential to turn the United States economy away from fossil fuels.She also promotes the growth of hemp and marijuana to localize the economies of Indigenous tribal lands.
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