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Winona LaDuke to Keynote ESTHER’s 2019 Banquet on November 3

Winona LaDuke at Bemidji State UniversityAt ESTHER’s 2019 Banquet on Sunday, November 3, attendees will hear directly from one of today’s most authentic, original, and prolific voices on the subject of climate justice.

Winona LaDuke shows us how to connect environmental sustainability and social justice in a unique, exciting and productive way. She explains that the exploitative practices that have degraded our environment have also produced the oppression and poverty of Native Americans and other people of color. Because, our society values short-term profits over other considerations, we ride roughshod over powerless people and over sustainable use of our land. We do this because we adhere to destructive values that endanger our survival. We can end the cycle of environmental degradation and oppression only if we adopt values that stress our relationship to the land, to all created beings and to those who come after us.

We can see her views in action in the work of the Honor the Earth Foundation, of which she is the director, and in her activism and advocacy for the Ojibwe people on the White Earth Reservation, where she lives.If we build a society based on honoring the earth, we build a society which is sustainable, and has the capacity to support all life forms. She has worked tirelessly to oppose the building of oil pipelines across  Indian Land, in the Dakotas and on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, but she has not only opposed the pipelines.

She has also supported a Green New Deal for indigenous people, including the development of wind and solar power on the reservation; she has promoted the growing of traditional varieties of corn that can flourish in the climate of northern Minnesota; and she has promoted the growing of hemp, which contains chemicals that can replace petrochemicals in many products.

Please note that because early ticket sales have been exceptionally strong, we have closed online ticket sales at 3:00 pm Central time on Wednesday, October 30.

The event is currently sold out, and we are building a waiting list. Please contact us at office@esther-foxvalley.org or 920-843-8083 to discuss options.

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