'Don't Pick A Fight With Mother Earth, You're Not Going To Win.' Winona LaDuke on Indigenous Sovereignty, Land Back, and Fighting Pipelines.
Photo by Keri Pickett
Winona LaDuke is probably the most dedicated, smart and hilarious activist you will ever come across. She lives on the White Earth Indian Reservation in Northwestern Minnesota, with about 130,000 other Anishinaabe and Ojibwe people. Since founding the White Earth Land Recovery Project in 1989, and Honor the Earth in 1983, she’s been fighting to preserve the indigenous sovereignty and environmental integrity of her land and people there.
She also notably ran for Vice President with Ralph Nader for the Green Party in 1996 and 2000. LaDuke and her collaborators in Minnesota just waged a years-long battle against the Line 3 pipeline, which Canadian energy company Enbridge ultimately pushed through in 2021.
That fight was building on her work against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock, a watershed moment in anti-pipeline protest, and in building a new type of movement linking environmental, indigenous, and racial justice activists. In this wide-ranging interview for Protest & Survive, LaDuke discusses being present in her community, anti-colonialism land back, building local sustainable economies, and trying every tactic to win.
Produced and hosted by Reed Dunlea, edited by Jason Halal, music by Jesse Crawford, and photography by Keri Picket.
