For The Wild - WINONA LaDUKE on the Prophesied Green Path ⧸57

00:00:00.000 This episode is in collaboration with Winona LaDuke's Hemp and Heritage Farm Kickstarter, which you can find at kickstarter.com.

00:00:30.000 Wishing for something the world is denying

00:00:32.900 Out in the wilderness somebody's crying

00:00:38.160 Somebody wishing for something to happen

00:00:51.340 Wishing to tell, wishing to help

00:00:54.780 Someone was listening, someone who cared

00:00:58.600 never despair. Someone to lean on and someone to trust. Who needs your assistance and finds your

00:01:08.340 disguise?

00:01:18.200 Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today we will be speaking with

00:01:23.940 Winona LaDuke. Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable

00:01:30.200 development, renewable energy, and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth Reservation

00:01:36.140 in northern Minnesota and is a two-time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the

00:01:41.240 Green Party. As program director of Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally

00:01:47.020 on the issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with indigenous

00:01:52.340 communities. And in her own community, she is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project,

00:01:58.400 one of the largest reservation-based nonprofit organizations in the country,

00:02:02.500 and a leader in the issues of culturally-based sustainable development strategies,

00:02:07.080 renewable energy, and food systems. In this work, she also continues national and international work

00:02:12.800 to protect indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering.

00:02:18.820 Thank you so much, Winona, for joining us today.

00:02:21.880 Oh, thanks for having me.

00:02:22.940 So I want to just jump right into Indigenous food sovereignty and discuss how the blanket term of food really dishonors the web of sentient beings whose lives are sacrificed to nourish our bodies, minds, spirits, and communities.

00:02:40.620 And it's powerful to remember that it was truly not so long ago that all of humanity's nourishment still came from a dynamic and, you know, sacred relationship with our ecosystems and our plant and animal kin, instead of this monoculture fed by fossil fuels.

00:02:59.300 And in the aftermath of the colonial desecration of Turtle Island's traditional foods, you

00:03:04.860 know, the bison of the Great Plains and the Diné sheep herds of the Southwest, and then

00:03:09.920 even the salmon of Cascadia, you know, we're left with a void where the sacred once was.

00:03:16.740 But this sacredness lives on in the seeds being recovered and safeguarded, in the gardens

00:03:21.500 being planted and tended, you know, a realm you've worked vibrantly in for decades.

00:03:26.740 So I'd love if you could speak about this revitalization of indigenous food diversity that is currently unfolding.

00:03:34.960 And also tell us about the White Earth Land Recovery Project and the Turtle Island Slow Food Movement.

00:03:42.180 Yeah, well, thanks. What a great introduction to some of this work.

00:03:46.080 You know, so I want to say that, like, in our territory, I live on the White Earth Reservation.

00:03:50.360 We call our land Nishinaabe our king or the land to which the people belong.

00:03:55.580 And we still have a lot of those traditional sacred foods here.

00:03:59.180 Our most sacred, I would say, is our wild rice, our manomen.

00:04:03.400 You know, this is the only place in the world wild rice grows naturally.

00:04:06.920 I know there's some diked rice paddies in Northern California.

00:04:10.140 Some of them are organic, most of them have pesticides and herbicides.

00:04:13.500 And I'll tell you what, it doesn't taste like a lake.

00:04:15.960 It tastes like a paddy.

00:04:17.620 So where I live, we have this sacred relationship that is retained each summer.

00:04:23.740 The month is called Mano-Minicae-Gisus, which is the wild rice-making moon.

00:04:28.960 And we go out, we put our prayers out, we take to our lakes and rivers and harvest our wild rice with two sticks and a canoe.

00:04:35.280 And then we come in and we parse it over a fire and it is available, you know, for our community.

00:04:41.020 We hold it for our feasts and we use it for all our ceremonies.

00:04:44.060 And so, you know, there are a lot of places that that has been broken, but it is not broken in our territory.

00:04:49.580 And I am here because of rice.

00:04:51.440 You know, it is what I've been working on for many years, including, you know, in 2000, we began this battle.

00:04:58.040 The University of Minnesota wanted to genetically engineer wild rice because it created all these diked rice patties in Minnesota.

00:05:04.680 I mean, just to give you a perspective, about 90% of the rice that's for sale in markets, including your Whole Foods and your organic stores, is patty rice.

00:05:12.420 It's not wild rice.

00:05:13.320 It's patty rice.

00:05:14.120 It's grown in a patty, and I don't think you can call it wild.

00:05:16.500 We call it tame rice.

00:05:17.820 But you want the right to genetically engineer.

00:05:21.440 the varieties, and to see what it could come up with.

00:05:24.600 And so the University of Minnesota, and so they had a seven-year battle on that.

00:05:28.260 And in that seven-year battle, we secured state legislation, which requires a full cultural

00:05:33.060 and environmental impact statement prior to any introduction of any genetic modification

00:05:38.420 of wild rice.

00:05:39.200 And so, you know, it has not happened.

00:05:41.040 But, you know, I say that, and that's how I, that's pretty much how I came involved

00:05:44.440 in the slow food movement, because slow food then recognized what we had done and gave

00:05:49.540 us. In 2003, we received the International Slow Food Award for biodiversity for our campaign,

00:05:55.080 our successful campaign. Well, at that point, it was ongoing. 2007 is the only one, but, you know,

00:06:00.040 to protect our wild rice from genetic engineering. And I've been working on this a long time. I've

00:06:04.900 been a traditional, you know, corn grower, beans, squash, and rice. I'm, you know, a ricer, but I

00:06:11.060 also, I don't do my work through the Writers Land Recovery Projects anymore. I left them

00:06:15.020 seven years ago, or six years ago, when the pipeline campaign began, the opposition to

00:06:20.520 the Enbridge Alliance. But we do sell our wild rice through Honor the Earth, and it's still

00:06:24.720 pipeline free after five years. Wow, that's a huge work to be fighting for this wild rice on top of

00:06:34.400 the pipelines and how they're all interconnected. And, you know, I think many of the audience

00:06:39.840 members may understand the consequences of the environmental consequences, should I say,

00:06:46.700 of genetically modifying traditional food plants. But what are your feelings about the

00:06:51.420 spiritual consequences when we take these seeds and disturb them?

00:06:57.120 Well, you know, what I would say is that when I went and told my elders what the university

00:07:01.400 didn't want to do, they, you know, there's like, there's not a lot of knowledge about

00:07:05.560 genetic engineering because, you know, most of my elders never heard about that before. And so I

00:07:09.560 explained it to them and their response was, well, who said they could do that? That's what they

00:07:14.640 said. Did Gigi Manitou or the creator say they could do that? So, you know, from our perspective,

00:07:19.700 the genetic engineering of food, you know, of our plants, food, as you said, I wouldn't use that

00:07:24.020 word, but our sacred seeds, our sacred plant relatives, our relatives with roots, we think

00:07:29.300 that's spiritually wrong, for sure. And I'm also wondering, why is indigenous food sovereignty

00:07:35.740 and the diversity of, you know, indigenous plant systems so vital to the survival of humanity

00:07:42.840 as the climate changes? Because, you know, if the Irish potato famine taught us anything,

00:07:49.080 it should have taught us that what you want is biodiversity and not a monocrop. And so,

00:07:55.480 you know at one point there was tremendous agrobiodiversity you know there was 8 000

00:08:00.640 varieties of corn and a multitude of species of all these other amazing foods and they were all

00:08:08.040 developed by our people with the creator i mean corn itself as you know used to be teosinte a

00:08:15.300 long time ago and teosinte is uh doesn't look anything like corn and so those 8 000 varieties

00:08:20.840 were, you know, really part of who we are and our culture. And so I think about our relationship

00:08:27.540 to our relatives that have roots, and it's strong, and it remains strong.

00:08:34.000 And on a legal level, how is the emerging recognition of intellectual property rights

00:08:39.660 being utilized to protect Indigenous seed from genetic manipulation?

00:08:45.260 Oh, that's such a great question. You know, I have to say that there's a lot of work underway.

00:08:49.900 A couple of years ago, I spent some time working on a food plan for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, and including in that was the policies of essentially what I would refer to as seat-to-table protection of your food from whether it is the genetic integrity of your foods, because our people have been very clear that these are our sacred foods or these are our sacred relatives.

00:09:15.100 and to the issues of, you know, having access to land or access to food

00:09:20.980 and then issues, you know, around serving that food

00:09:24.000 because, you know, everyone knows that the FDA and these other agencies

00:09:27.940 have been really trying to cut down or clamp down on local foods,

00:09:33.080 but tribes have jurisdiction over these issues.

00:09:35.460 And so, you know, I think from my perspective,

00:09:37.880 it's not just work on the intellectual property rights issues,

00:09:41.580 but it's the whole question of, you know, food's a human right.

00:09:44.540 and a nation or indigenous nation, you know, has the right to protect their food and to ensure

00:09:50.120 their people are fed. And so that's kind of the broad sweeping work that I'm interested in. And

00:09:55.420 I have to say that I don't do a lot of international work. I do mostly tribal policy

00:09:59.560 work because I like to work at home or I like to work with tribes. And yeah, you know, it's an

00:10:04.640 emergent and growing. And certainly, you know, under international agreements, increasingly,

00:10:09.760 there's a recognition of these issues. At the same time, there's, you know, it's going to be

00:10:13.740 a constant battle because that's the way the predator economy, or I kind of started calling

00:10:18.760 it the wendigo or the cannibal economy is. They always keep trying to take. They don't back down

00:10:23.780 on it. So you got to fight them back. The wendigo cannibal economy. I've been

00:10:29.160 speaking with others lately about that. And I think even as we move greater culture back into

00:10:37.600 a way that appreciates the sacredness and everything through our localized food and

00:10:43.320 energy movements and our ceremonial and prayerful gatherings, we still have one major hindrance to

00:10:50.180 overcome, which is money. And it seems that as long as we still require money to survive in this

00:10:56.220 society, we'll struggle with the balance between the monetary value and sacred value of our food

00:11:03.660 or our art or services to one another. So I'm curious, what are your thoughts on what sacred

00:11:11.120 or regenerative economy means

00:11:13.020 within the prevailing capitalistic

00:11:15.560 and cannibalistic paradigm.

00:11:18.660 Well, you know, I don't spend a lot of time

00:11:20.740 trying to fix that one.

00:11:22.440 You know, I spend most of my time

00:11:23.780 trying to move to the next economy

00:11:25.680 because this one is, you know, quite broken.

00:11:28.720 You know, the whole structure of it

00:11:30.200 is predicated on taking more than you need

00:11:32.660 and not leaving the rest.

00:11:34.060 And, you know, nobody who's listening to this

00:11:35.940 needs a full lecture on what's wrong with the economy.

00:11:38.540 You know, we've got it.

00:11:39.820 You know, we understand that.

00:11:41.120 Like, just to give you an example, you know, from my perspective, a capitalist economy or this present economy values accumulation, you know, collecting things, hoarding them, keeping them, counting your assets, making sure you have a really big retirement fund because you're going to be cold and alone and by yourself and sick, you know.

00:12:03.680 And so that whole preying on that whole thing is super unhealthy. 0.98

00:12:07.340 Now, an indigenous economy is based far more on generosity.

00:12:12.680 So, for instance, up there in the Northwest Territory, they have these potlatches.

00:12:17.120 And the giveaway, you know, or at a powwow, what you see is that the giveaway or what you gift away, your generosity, is valued far more than your stinginess or your accumulation.

00:12:30.520 So it's like a totally counter-economy.

00:12:32.560 So, you know, that's the only way we're going to survive, is if we return to something which values more.

00:12:39.100 You know, at the same time, that does not mean that you can't have a trade economy, and it doesn't mean that you can't have an integrated economy.

00:12:45.700 And in this era we are in now, you know, we're going to need to figure those pieces out.

00:12:50.780 So, for instance, the Anishinaabeg people, you know, my reservation in territory, we probably have, you know, a million pounds.

00:12:58.660 We have more than that, of wild rice that we could sell.

00:13:01.600 a million pounds. That's more than we eat. You know, it's always been something that we've

00:13:06.160 traded. I travel with it. You know, I sell it all the time, but I also trade with tribes

00:13:12.280 everywhere, you know, Native people everywhere for whether it is my salt or sometimes my

00:13:16.600 pino nuts. You know, I trade for many, many different great gifts that are elsewhere.

00:13:22.580 I'm a big fan of the chilies. I do grow heritage corn varieties, but sometimes I trade for

00:13:27.480 other people's corn for my sacred wild rice so we trade what we are not going to eat and we

00:13:32.680 keep the wealth in our economy and it's you know to me it's like the difference between you know

00:13:36.680 of course fair trade or free trade i mean i'm interested in fair trade fair and just relationships

00:13:43.300 and so that's you know the work that i see and you know the future is really going to be that

00:13:48.700 but at the same time and i'm an economist by training there was coming an environmentalist

00:13:53.380 but I'm actually technically an economist.

00:13:55.920 And I think most people, you know, I don't know, you know, I mean,

00:13:58.160 I went to Harvard and MIT and was trained and I'm a rural development

00:14:01.760 economist. So, you know,

00:14:03.080 my interest is really in how you get control of your economy.

00:14:07.080 You know, like on my reservation and like in a lot of other territories,

00:14:10.440 we spend a quarter of our money on energy and a quarter on food.

00:14:14.820 I think we're spending about a quarter on healthcare right now.

00:14:17.120 And most of that's hemorrhaging out. You know,

00:14:20.280 And what I mean by that is buying food from someplace else and you're buying energy from someplace else.

00:14:25.700 And, you know, your health care system is super decrepit and super full of opioids.

00:14:30.760 So I'm interested in how you relocalize that economy to stop it from hemorrhaging.

00:14:35.140 And then, you know, you'll have a stronger economy and your need for cash will be diminished significantly.

00:14:40.500 So that's kind of my plan for my territory.

00:14:43.400 And that's actually what I'm trying to do in my own extended community at this point.

00:14:48.140 Because I think that if you're going to, you know, hitch your cart to the fossil fuels economy or hitch your cart to some vagaries of some capitalist economy and some development plans or some latest scheme, you're always going to end up, you know, losing out and be super unstable.

00:15:04.780 And, you know, I mean, we already have enough stress in our community.

00:15:08.040 I don't know if that kind of answers your question, but, you know, I'm really interested in the next economy.

00:15:12.340 Yeah, it does answer it. And I think it brings up a really good point that when we're trying to use all of our energy to fight against this, just insanity, this, this global madness, which is capitalism, it takes a lot of energy and not a lot of wins.

00:15:32.320 And so I think focusing on the regenerative economy or what we can move into is actually a lot more life-giving for many people.

00:15:42.620 Not to say that the folks that are fighting against it shouldn't be doing that.

00:15:46.080 I praise them as well.

00:15:47.860 And, you know, what I've heard you bring up a few times is wanting to localize, wanting to work on policy that is in Turtle Island rather than going to the international circuit.

00:16:00.440 and I really appreciate that and resonate with that in my own life you know I'm not even really

00:16:05.760 interested in international travel anymore because I realize that I want to be where I love where I

00:16:11.880 know where is family where I know I can have a positive influence and I look back at your career

00:16:19.400 as I've been studying for this interview and you know you work to protect indigenous rights within

00:16:24.840 a myriad of different veins of action you know from the ground action and communities

00:16:29.680 in many corners of Turtle Island to then running for vice president alongside Ralph Nader.

00:16:36.260 I'm wondering, why do you now focus on the grassroots localized action

00:16:40.680 instead of mainstream politics?

00:16:43.200 And why has your attention moved there for you personally?

00:16:47.400 Well, I mean, you're right.

00:16:48.800 It depends on where you are when you start and your life.

00:16:51.880 You know, my first work was international work.

00:16:54.880 I was a student at Harvard, and the American Indian Movement began international work through the International Indian Treaty Council.

00:17:05.180 And I worked for the American Indian Movement.

00:17:07.940 And the first UNN conference, the first United Nations conference on the rights of Indigenous people, was held in 1977 at the United Nations.

00:17:17.020 And I was able to participate in that.

00:17:19.340 I was involved in that.

00:17:20.540 I was a very young woman.

00:17:21.820 I was 18.

00:17:22.460 And I was inspired.

00:17:24.500 My peers or people I looked across the world to were those in the African National Congress,

00:17:30.060 the AMC, fighting for the liberation of Black people in South Africa or the Polisario,

00:17:35.300 you know, Swapo and the Zapatistas.

00:17:37.560 I mean, so I have traveled.

00:17:39.500 I've been in a lot of those places.

00:17:41.720 And I am in solidarity with those because our struggles are international struggles.

00:17:46.240 At the same time, I was raised in a rural area.

00:17:49.160 I'm not a very good urban person.

00:17:50.840 You know, people think I'm super sophisticated.

00:17:52.640 I don't know what they think, but I'm not.

00:17:53.960 I get stressed out in a city, and I prefer to be in a rural community. So, you know,

00:18:00.460 I returned to my reservation when I got out of Harvard in 1981, and I've lived there since.

00:18:05.320 In my, you know, my work there, I mean, you're right, I've done about everything. I've been to

00:18:09.800 the UN, I've run for national office, I've been arrested, I've testified at Congress, I've testified

00:18:15.760 at the state, and, you know, I work in the arena that you need to work in at the time.

00:18:21.000 But the skills and things that occur move and change.

00:18:24.500 So, for instance, international work, that was when we first started working on the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, was in 1977.

00:18:33.740 It took 30 years.

00:18:35.060 It took 30 years to get the U.N. to pass by the General Assembly the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

00:18:42.180 Well, you know, that was some tremendous work, some tremendous persistence by, you know, many Indigenous people who went to the U.N.

00:18:50.380 repeatedly and said, we should have rights that are like the rights of others. And I commend them.

00:18:55.500 And that work continues internationally. And, you know, the idea that someone is looking at you,

00:19:01.220 I mean, number 45 doesn't really care if anybody is looking at him, but other countries do.

00:19:05.640 So, you know, to keep the attention on egregious human rights violations by Canada, for instance,

00:19:12.360 you know, that work needs to continue at the United Nations. You know, for me, I'm actually

00:19:16.620 not that patient. You know, I mean, I'm not that patient in that, let's just be honest, it took 30

00:19:21.840 years to pass that UN Declaration. I wasn't going to go to the UN for 30 years and spend, you know,

00:19:26.460 thousands of dollars getting myself over there to go through that process. I'm really kind of more

00:19:31.660 of an action person. And so, you know, I returned to my reservation and wanted to work on the issue

00:19:36.960 of land justice, because if you don't have access to your land, you're not going to have access to

00:19:40.760 your economy. And so in that, you know, I worked to form the White Earth Land Recovery Project,

00:19:45.840 because 90% of our land was held by non-Indians, we bought back 1,400 acres of land, and it's a 0.99

00:19:51.940 land trust. And on that, we grow a lot of traditional foods. And on that, we have a

00:19:56.520 maple syruping operation, and we own a radio station. And we have a USDA-certified food

00:20:03.020 processing facility, wind turbines, a lot of really great stuff. And I was really proud

00:20:08.600 to be part of that. And so I like tangible things. I feel like that while you fight the

00:20:15.160 bad guys you got to fight the bad guys girl you know because if you don't fight the bad guys they

00:20:19.000 will run over you so you know i continued work obviously on on opposition to mega projects 0.96

00:20:25.300 stupid infrastructure projects like the line three pipeline that we are facing now at the same time 0.98

00:20:31.180 i want to make where we're going and i don't even call it the alternative i call it the enlightened 0.99

00:20:35.700 path i mean in our prophecies it's referred to as the time of the seventh fire and we're told

00:20:41.520 we've got a choice between two paths. One is well-worn, but it is scorched. The other is not

00:20:47.120 well-worn, but it is green. And so I work on moving us to the green path. And that's my interest

00:20:53.040 in this work. In the meantime, you've got to make sure that they don't destroy you. And so

00:20:58.720 I still remain very involved. Unfortunately, I would say they're very involved in the work to

00:21:05.560 oppose Line 3, which is pretty much the last tar sands pipeline proposal that you're ever going to

00:21:10.500 have. And that's a proposal for 915,000 barrels a day that they want to bring through northern

00:21:16.920 Minnesota, and it's the Enbridge Corporation. I don't know if you know much about our history,

00:21:22.220 but last year we defeated a similar pipeline in the same territory, and that was called the

00:21:27.300 Sandpiper. So this is round two with Enbridge. When Enbridge didn't get the Sandpiper, they

00:21:32.120 bought 28% of the Dakota Access Pipeline and put a lot of money in to make sure that that happened.

00:21:37.540 and that's how you know we became related to the dakota access battle but we defeated them in

00:21:43.240 minnesota and now they are back and i tell you what like every time i go to one of those meetings

00:21:48.080 hearings you know there's there's some guys standing up saying you can't live without oil

00:21:53.000 you know you can't live without oil and i keep saying yes you can you know you can move on and

00:21:58.200 it's time to move on and you know we need efficiency we need local food so we're not

00:22:02.920 shouldn't step around the world, you know, from everywhere else,

00:22:06.740 1,400 miles from farmer to stable.

00:22:09.540 And we need, you know, local food economies, local energy economies, efficiency. 0.66

00:22:14.380 And, I mean, as you know, we also need hamps.

00:22:16.740 Take me back home to the air that's warm

00:22:21.300 And the silent soaking rain

00:22:24.840 Where the cedar grows to the one who knows

00:22:30.320 Nothing is ever in vain

00:22:34.000 There was someone there

00:22:36.860 Who would take good care

00:22:39.700 That nothing was ever the same

00:22:43.280 Take me back home again

00:22:47.160 Weary of wandering

00:22:48.960 I won't be leaving that yet

00:22:51.620 You give me some word of the one who waits

00:22:55.040 In the house of quarry stone

00:22:59.080 Where the river bends and the eagle spins

00:23:04.460 Well, no one is ever alone

00:23:08.380 Though I had to go

00:23:11.020 How could I know this

00:23:14.240 Love that may never have grown

00:23:17.260 Oh, take me back home again

00:23:21.220 Weary of wandering

00:23:23.100 I will be leaving

00:23:25.180 Just to touch on the pipeline again,

00:23:27.460 you were able to fight the sandpiper, and they weren't able to go through that, but now they're

00:23:33.480 back. And I'm wondering, what were the tactics that worked for the sandpiper? And do you think

00:23:38.720 those tactics will work again? Or is there a new strategy in place? Well, I mean, the basic

00:23:45.020 strategy that we have is to keep pushing back. The fact is, is that this pipeline battle is

00:23:50.840 for a tar sands pipeline, tar sands production is not increasing, nor should it, as the divest

00:23:57.420 movement, you know, pushes against all of their strategies. Let's just be clear on this. The

00:24:03.340 Enbridge Corporation has six pipelines in northern Minnesota right now. Those pipelines were put in

00:24:08.320 most of them before the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act or any environmental laws. And so

00:24:13.420 we have an aging pipeline infrastructure in northern Minnesota, which is not surprising

00:24:17.940 because the United States has a D in infrastructure.

00:24:20.820 Every place it is sailing.

00:24:22.540 But ours is old in this territory,

00:24:24.460 and it ran through three reservations the last time.

00:24:28.040 That would be Red Lake, Leech Lake, and Fond du Lac Reservation.

00:24:31.020 And it all heads towards Superior,

00:24:33.600 which just in your strategic picture,

00:24:35.980 Superior is on Lake Superior, a fifth of the world's water,

00:24:39.500 and is the furthest inland port,

00:24:41.360 which has a whole set of implications for it.

00:24:44.720 Then it links up to these other pipelines,

00:24:46.200 including the one that gave us the Kalamazoo spill

00:24:48.780 and the one that's under the Straits of Mackinac.

00:24:51.660 I don't know if you've been watching that at all,

00:24:52.860 but there's a pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac,

00:24:55.220 which is super old and has been there.

00:24:57.820 Line 5 has been there since the 1960s and is no longer anchored.

00:25:02.040 So we're fighting to keep more oil from coming our way.

00:25:05.500 Our plan is to keep pushing back on them and to say, first of all,

00:25:09.720 you know, Enbridge should clean up their old mess before they get a new mess.

00:25:12.480 They're trying to abandon one of those lines, Line 3,

00:25:15.040 and build a brand new Line 3 in a brand new corridor, 0.99

00:25:18.300 which is the corridor that they wanted for the sandpiper.

00:25:20.740 So we're saying, you don't get to do that.

00:25:22.380 You should clean up your old mess.

00:25:23.920 That's what we're saying. 1.00

00:25:24.620 And there's a lot of non-Indian landowners

00:25:26.420 that are concerned about the same thing.

00:25:28.720 And the second thing is that in Minnesota,

00:25:30.820 we're not a state which actually has any oil.

00:25:33.440 So this pipeline just passes through.

00:25:35.040 It doesn't even come anywhere here.

00:25:37.420 And so it's a huge risk issue for the state of Minnesota.

00:25:41.980 And it's not like we're in a petro state like North Dakota.

00:25:45.040 This is not North Dakota. 0.74

00:25:46.700 In fact, non-Indian people work with Indian people and oppose in a pipeline here. 0.78

00:25:50.380 I mean, the interveners include five tribes to work in the regulatory process, five Ojibwe 0.52

00:25:56.380 tribes onto the earth, and a number of grassroots landowner associations, some landowners, and

00:26:03.600 the youth climate interveners who are stellar in this battle and asking the serious questions

00:26:09.280 like, what kind of planet are you going to leave me?

00:26:11.420 So we're in a rigorous regulatory battle.

00:26:14.620 We're in a battle over the future of Minnesota because, you know, the question I really have

00:26:19.100 to ask is, why do you want to spend $7 billion on a fossil fuel pipeline when you have over

00:26:25.380 $7 billion worth of infrastructure needs just in the state of Minnesota?

00:26:28.920 So why don't we put pipeline workers to work, first of all, in building infrastructure for

00:26:34.140 people, not for oil companies?

00:26:36.540 And then let's be sure that we can also, at the same time, look at the question of abandonment

00:26:41.820 because the Enbridge company says it'll cost about $1.9 billion to clean up the old mess and

00:26:48.480 to remove the pipe. And so I feel like, you know, $1.9 billion, let's just do that. Why don't you

00:26:54.500 just do that and employ a lot of people? Because that's all labor. That's not even any hardware. 0.98

00:26:59.620 In the meantime, I mean, there's 323 miles of pipe sitting in northern Minnesota for a pipeline

00:27:05.120 that's never going to be built with sandpaper. And so I keep saying to Enbridge and the state

00:27:09.500 of minnesota that they should ship those pipes to flint to flint michigan a place that hasn't had

00:27:14.600 a functioning water system for about 1200 days so i'm like why don't we just do the right thing

00:27:21.100 build infrastructure for people not for oil companies and plus a lot of our strategy is

00:27:25.460 really questioning the economics you know the the implications for infrastructure the need you know

00:27:31.960 and the environmental aspects are are certainly you know quite clear with climate change but you

00:27:37.060 know, it's an integrated approach. And then I think, as you know, there's also frontline camps.

00:27:42.980 I mean, we have told Minnesota that they should not issue that permit because there are already

00:27:47.420 hundreds of people camping on the proposed route in Minnesota. And if they issue that permit,

00:27:52.000 there'll be thousands of people. And I don't think that Minnesota is North Dakota. They do not want

00:27:56.740 essentially a civil war, which is what they're going to get if they actually issue that permit.

00:28:00.820 Wow, you just gave me chills with that last statement. I feel the, oh gosh, the confidence. I really think that as depressing as it is that talking about environmental or human suffering isn't enough all the time, but being able to discuss the economics and the infrastructure and being able to discuss these projects on all of those levels, I think really makes a difference.

00:28:26.540 And we need to be talking about it and bringing our plans to the table in ways that are multidimensional so that we can look at it and really allow more people to hear the other side of the story.

00:28:40.300 You know, I really want to talk about hemp, but there is one thing I wanted to clarify.

00:28:43.980 You know, you had talked about your traditional lands and that you had to buy 1,200 acres back.

00:28:51.240 I'd love to hear from you, and I'm sure the audience would too.

00:28:54.740 how did this come to be? Is it that a treaty was not honored or was it that the land had been sold

00:29:02.620 off? Yeah, no, the treaty was not honored. I mean, this is land within the borders of the 1867

00:29:08.500 Treaty or the White Earth Reservation. And you have to remember that Frederick Weyerhaeuser was

00:29:13.000 our neighbor. And so the Weyerhaeuser Lumber Empire began in Minnesota through the pillaging

00:29:18.300 of all of the wood of the territories of the Ojibwe. That's how Weyerhaeuser began. And then 0.94

00:29:23.520 they built that train with J.J. Hill and all of the big lumber barons followed by the big railroad

00:29:28.720 barons. They all came from Minnesota. And so that's how the railroads were built, you know,

00:29:32.940 off of our trees and, you know, with everything from us. So, you know, the land was taken,

00:29:39.280 was taken through allotments, was taken through some printed deeds. It was taken, you know,

00:29:44.660 by the Indian agent. Our land was taken. And I spent a lot of years working to get back land. 0.97

00:29:50.840 and we got 10,000 acres returned

00:29:53.200 and then we started buying some land

00:29:55.300 and there's much more to work on there

00:29:57.420 but if without land you cannot build an economy

00:30:00.120 and so that's kind of how I started

00:30:02.780 and then as I said

00:30:03.660 I left the Wider Than Recovery Project six years ago

00:30:05.900 to begin the pipeline battle

00:30:07.500 because you can't run two major campaigns at once

00:30:09.880 and so I focused on pipelines

00:30:11.340 which I don't really like doing

00:30:13.100 but I have some traction in this

00:30:14.920 I've done this stuff before

00:30:16.040 and so I spent six years in my life

00:30:17.560 now fighting pipelines

00:30:19.040 that's a little bit about

00:30:20.840 where that came from. Do you feel that this purchasing of land and then putting it into a

00:30:26.300 land trust is the best way for all tribes? Or do you think it's really case-specific when it's

00:30:33.720 coming to different areas and different tribes trying to get their land back? I think it's

00:30:39.260 case-specific. I mean, the model that we developed was after I looked at the Trust for Public Lands

00:30:44.220 and the Nature Conservancy. And I said, you know, we're like the Nature Conservancy,

00:30:49.340 except for we're culturally based.

00:30:51.420 You know, we want to do this.

00:30:52.340 So I'm going to leverage money

00:30:53.380 and people are going to donate land.

00:30:55.260 And that's how we started.

00:30:56.500 And, you know, basically,

00:30:57.200 I'm still doing that in some ways.

00:30:59.500 I mean, I've moved on from

00:31:00.940 Whiter's Undercovering Project

00:31:02.220 and now, you know, both Honor the Earth

00:31:04.360 and then my new initiative in hemp

00:31:06.300 is moving into the same arena,

00:31:08.600 but kind of an expanded vision.

00:31:11.600 Well, speaking of this expanded vision,

00:31:13.860 I'd love to turn the conversation

00:31:15.320 towards the diverse food and fiber systems

00:31:18.280 that you're nurturing from the preservation of the wild rice beds to now growing hemp at the

00:31:22.820 Hemp and Heritage Farm. And, you know, you and your community are living and breathing the

00:31:27.460 actualization of a transition away from reliance on fossil fuels. So I would just love for you to

00:31:33.500 take us into what you envision for the future of your farm, how we can support you, you know,

00:31:39.280 through the Kickstarter campaign, but also beyond that. You know, if you sit there and you look at

00:31:44.380 where we need to go. You need to build an integrated post-petroleum economy. And everybody

00:31:50.020 knows the story about hemp used to be everything until like the 1920s, about 80% of our clothing

00:31:55.800 was hemp. And then the cotton lobby and the petrochemical lobby and the timber lobby shoved

00:32:01.360 hemp to the sideline and linked hemp to marijuana, which became this evil thing and was demonized.

00:32:07.120 And in a more enlightened society now, we know that there are separate things and that it's the

00:32:12.460 same plant, but that hemp has a whole set of uses in the plant itself. It's like so interesting to

00:32:17.060 me. So just a little background, you know, I'm a farmer, you know, I'm a horse farmer, actually.

00:32:21.960 I farm with horses and I grow corn varieties and I grow really cool squash. I grow tobacco and now

00:32:29.880 I'm moving into beans because I really like beans and that's what I grow. And I grow for my family,

00:32:34.800 but I have grown for some markets and I'd like to kind of build like a Ojibwe farming association

00:32:40.620 that grows for local markets and grows for, you know, retail sales as well as for our families.

00:32:46.300 So that's my interest. And, you know, I've done it for 25 years and, you know, I'm going to keep

00:32:51.640 doing it. So in the last few years, you know, as this battle emerged, the state of Minnesota issued

00:32:57.300 industrial hemp permits. And so for the last two years, I've had the permit to cultivate industrial

00:33:02.840 hemp in Minnesota. And so for the past two years, I've been growing hemp in Minnesota and there's

00:33:08.420 26 growers in total, and maybe next year there'll be more. They're probably well. My tribe

00:33:13.400 actually grew eight varieties. I only grew one variety. Actually, I grew two varieties.

00:33:18.980 And the tribe grew eight varieties for fiber, because it turns out that Minnesota used to have

00:33:24.460 11 hemp mills in it. And we used to grow for fiber, and we used to grow for rope. And so I'm

00:33:31.000 kind of like, let's just try that again, because we de-industrialized this country in a really

00:33:35.920 inappropriate manner. We shipped every kind of light manufacturing to China. So if you want to

00:33:41.400 buy hemp fabric, you're buying from China. You know, pretty much that's it. And so I look around

00:33:46.060 there and I say, like, what was that plan? What was that plan, you know, to do that? And in the

00:33:51.360 meantime, we turned into an economy that basically shops. Seventy percent of our economy is based on

00:33:55.620 shopping. And you have all these, you know, union workers that no longer have jobs. And so I am,

00:34:01.100 you know, in favor of appropriate manufacturing. So I'm interested in the rebuilding. I'm working,

00:34:06.940 you know, at this basic level on the hemp because, you know, I have an integrated farming operation

00:34:12.160 that's post-petroleum, largely horses. And in that, part of it is hemp. You know, I don't want

00:34:17.800 you to think that I'm just a hemp grower. I'm an integrated farmer, of which part of what I'm doing

00:34:22.520 is hemp. So I started this Kickstarter with no idea how to do it. I got a bunch of coaching from

00:34:28.720 my niece, Nydia Garcia, and Nydia taught me how to do Kickstarter. And so I'm now trying to raise

00:34:35.840 a hundred thousand dollars by Thanksgiving, drop dead Thanksgiving. You know, I want to buy this

00:34:40.620 farm and on this farm, we're going to grow all the cool stuff. And I'm going to have a space for my

00:34:45.620 horses, my hemp, my bees. I want to do like CBD honey. And I want to develop these varietals so

00:34:52.560 that we can work to get some kind of hemp fiber back in this country. And I feel like I'm your

00:34:59.100 girl. I've spent my whole life fighting bad guys and I know how to get stuff done. And I feel like

00:35:04.800 this is a shot. So I'm asking people to support me in it. And I just really appreciate their support

00:35:09.560 on my hemp gift card. And it's not just for hemp, it's for horses and my horse farming operations

00:35:14.520 and all of my agriculture. So hemp is an important part of it because hemp is part of the next

00:35:20.040 economy. Yeah, there's two things I want to hear from you. One, hemp is part of the new economy.

00:35:26.400 We've talked a lot about regenerative economy, local economy. So where does hemp fit in? What

00:35:31.460 kind of role does hemp play? You know, like I said, I mean, right now, most of the clothing

00:35:35.860 we're wearing is pretty destructive. I mean, the cotton is produced with a lot of water and a lot

00:35:40.420 of pesticides. I think about a quarter of the pesticides used in the water are in cotton.

00:35:44.700 You know, everything else that's like, you know, polyester is all fossil fuels.

00:35:50.080 And all that stuff makes like little microfibers that end up in our water system.

00:35:54.580 I feel like that opportunity for, you know, changing the clothing economy is in hemp.

00:36:00.320 The paper economy is in hemp.

00:36:02.640 The opportunity for hemp crease as a part of building is in hemp.

00:36:07.860 So that's what I want to do.

00:36:09.100 And, you know, in order to do it, you just got to do it.

00:36:11.820 And I've been out there a lot.

00:36:13.100 I know a lot of cool people, and I feel like my community is ready to do this, and I can help provide some guidance and support for it through creating this research and development and production area for hemp.

00:36:26.580 And then, you know, if I'm able to raise $100,000, which I'm really hoping, if I get anything else, I'm going to work on trying to get a decortication machine, which is what splits up the hemp fibers to make them so that you can weave them.

00:36:37.100 You know, it's going to be a lot of work to rebuild a local hemp economy or a regional hemp economy or, in fact, a national one because we don't have any hemp mills or, you know, anywhere in this country.

00:36:45.600 But, you know, I think it's happening and I'm just one of the many people on it.

00:36:48.800 But, you know, I want to do this.

00:36:50.080 So I'm asking for people's support.

00:36:53.140 Well, it's wonderful.

00:36:54.480 I'm so excited hearing you talk about it because I can see this.

00:36:58.360 Oh, yeah.

00:36:58.720 No, I'm so excited myself.

00:37:00.360 You can imagine.

00:37:01.780 Yeah, well, it's really a long vision, and it's an expansive vision that encompasses so much.

00:37:07.380 And, you know, you were talking about how you want to plant a number of varietals.

00:37:11.480 And I'm wondering, are they the same varieties of hemp used for fuel, fiber, and food?

00:37:17.020 No, they're different.

00:37:18.480 You know, there's some hemp varieties that are high in CBDs and are good for fiber.

00:37:23.060 You know, that's kind of like an ideal situation for me.

00:37:25.400 But from what I can figure, plants are kind of magical.

00:37:28.200 and hemp or cannabis is certainly a magical plant and in being magical you can't expect a monocrop

00:37:34.540 you got to take care of plants differently so if you're raising something for medicine

00:37:37.860 or cbds you got to sing to your plants you got to pray with your plants i mean you do that with

00:37:42.760 all of them but i don't want to be a mass producer you know i want to be someone who

00:37:46.620 makes good medicines if i'm doing cbds for my people with rheumatoid arthritis you know i want

00:37:52.340 to do that and then i want to do fiber because you know i want to be the person who actually

00:37:56.560 is able to help work to change our economy from fabric economy. I'm not, you know, looking at

00:38:02.740 fuel. That's probably somebody else. But there's a lot of different varieties out there, you know,

00:38:07.800 and I'm going to kind of stick to the things that resonate the most with me because that's what we

00:38:11.860 do our best at, right? So I feel extremely confident that this Kickstarter will continue

00:38:19.300 to grow. And just for the audience, I'll mention this at the end. But for those of you who have a

00:38:23.880 pen and paper you know you go to kickstarter.com and search winona's hemp and heritage farm and

00:38:30.100 you'll find a video and information and i i feel very confident that this is on its way to a hundred

00:38:36.520 thousand dollars really soon and probably beyond and for all of us who are listening out there who

00:38:43.600 are feeling inspired to support this project you know is there a start date you know what do you

00:38:49.840 see coming up in the next few months once you reach your goal well we'll be planting in the

00:38:54.320 spring and i'm gonna sort all the pieces out with the farm and get all the pieces together and then

00:38:59.740 i'm setting up some workshops on horse farming and train some more people in that and then i'm

00:39:04.760 going to be picking my seeds hosting a big hemp conference in march up on my reservation and then

00:39:10.560 by this spring we'll be planting and we're going to still keep fighting that pipeline but we're

00:39:14.900 going to plant our hemp from. Well, you know, one of my biggest takeaways from this conversation

00:39:21.140 is something you said really recently of just doing it. You see this as a good idea and you're

00:39:27.120 making it happen. And I think for all of us who are feeling overwhelmed or debilitated by

00:39:33.880 the powers that be and the Anthropocene extinction and, you know, the global capitalist and etc,

00:39:40.020 etc to hear from you and to hear your conviction of just doing it figuring it out putting your

00:39:47.820 hands on the earth and making it happen is so revitalizing to the spirit to know that

00:39:54.020 we have power and we can start something if we have the passion and the community to move forward

00:40:01.080 and how important it is to actually take those tangible steps and this kind of direct action

00:40:06.400 intangible work where you don't have to wait for the UN for 30 years to put a declaration in place

00:40:14.120 which then again like what does that actually even mean you know we're looking at the COP 23

00:40:18.980 in Bonn Germany that's happening right now and we're putting so much energy and travel time and

00:40:24.560 airplanes and people energy into creating this agreement or trying to uphold this agreement that

00:40:30.520 was made in Paris and what is that really going to do I'm not saying we shouldn't do it I have

00:40:34.980 dear friends that are over there right now working and I so appreciate them. But I think

00:40:40.020 there's something so intrinsically powerful about taking change into our own hands and figuring out

00:40:47.920 how to do it within our communities. So I just want to say thank you for sharing with us your

00:40:53.700 story and your passion and how you made this happen and how I believe it will just continue

00:40:59.720 to ripple out and inspire more people to do the same. Yeah, you know, everybody has their part,

00:41:05.300 and I'm just doing my best. And just, you know, kind of in closing, what I'd say is that they

00:41:09.840 may have taken the political system, but they didn't take the economic system. So it's our

00:41:13.940 turn, you know, time to just do it and take care of it at a local level, reaffirm people,

00:41:18.720 reaffirm our communities, and just remember that it's our future. So, you know, it needs to be

00:41:24.180 about that process. So, listen, I want to thank you so much for calling me. And, you know, like,

00:41:29.080 If you look at our website, it's Winona's Hemp, and more information about Honor the Earth, which I direct.

00:41:34.620 And if you want some Pipeline Free Wild Rides, you can get that from Honor the Earth for your holiday season.

00:41:40.320 But let's work together.

00:41:41.640 And if you can support my Hemp Kickstarter, I really, really appreciate it.

00:41:45.220 I know that not a lot of people have a lot of money, but I really appreciate being the person who has 550 backers.

00:41:51.100 Makes me feel great.

00:41:53.620 Well, you definitely have backers with us at For the Wild.

00:41:56.760 we support this project and I know that all the listeners will too because you know Winona you

00:42:03.000 have spent your life busting your butt to help all of us and you're somebody who has so much

00:42:10.500 integrity and steadfastness and I think that if people want to support a project there's so much

00:42:18.040 trust in you and what you do and what you've brought to the table in your life so I thank you

00:42:23.900 so much for being on the show today and the best of luck with the hemp and i'm so excited for spring

00:42:30.320 when the seeds are going to be going in the ground and they'll probably just be singing back at you

00:42:35.140 saying thank you we love you and uh we'll grow to the sky that's what i'm hoping i feel really

00:42:41.700 good about it too growing makes me happy hey miigwetch thanks for your time okay

00:42:53.900 We know

00:43:00.900 We know

00:43:03.900 We know

00:43:08.900 We know

00:43:13.900 We know

00:43:18.900 Thank you for listening to For the Wild podcast.

00:43:46.420 I'm Ayanna Young.

00:43:47.580 The music you heard today was Take Me Back Home by Heron.

00:43:52.520 Then, Anageha, a woman's honoring song by Joan Henry.

00:43:57.900 Our theme music is Silence Returns by Bo and Like a River from Kate Wolfe.

00:44:03.520 I'd like to thank our amazing team at For the Wild, our producers, March Young and Reach Out,

00:44:10.900 our research director, Madison Migulski, and media director, Molly Lebov.

00:44:16.200 please head over to

00:44:18.260 forthewild.world to sign up

00:44:20.360 for our newsletter and to learn more

00:44:22.400 about our one million Redwoods project

00:44:24.240 and if you value this content

00:44:26.500 please go to iTunes

00:44:28.100 and rate us

00:44:29.280 your review will help us reach wider audiences

00:44:46.200 Thank you.

For The Wild - November 16, 2017

WINONA LaDUKE on the Prophesied Green Path ⧸57

Episode Stats

Transcript