MILWAUKEE – Sustainability activist Winona LaDuke is leading a grassroots charge to establish the country’s next energy economy on April 11.

The UWM College of Letters & Science hosts a talk by LaDuke April 11 at the annual Dean’s Distinguished Lecture in the Humanities. Her talk, “The Next Energy Economy: Grassroots Strategies to Mitigate Global Climate Change and How We Move Ahead,” will explore some of the solar, wind and localized food production projects taking place on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota.

This event, held in room 131 of Merrill Hall, 2512 E. Hartford Avenue, is free and open to the public. A 6 p.m. reception precedes the lecture, which begins at 6:30 p.m.

LaDuke lives and works on the White Earth reservation, where she is promoting sustainable development of renewable energy and food systems. The two-time vice-presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party is also the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation-based nonprofit organizations in the country.

As program director of Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on the issues of climate change, renewable energy and environmental justice with indigenous communities.

In 2007, LaDuke was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and in 1994, she was nominated by Timemagazine as one of America’s 50 most promising leaders under 40. She has been awarded the Thomas Merton Award in 1996, Ms.Woman of the Year, and the Reebok Human Rights Award. The White Earth Land Recovery Project has won many awards – including the prestigious 2003 International Slow Food Award for Biodiversity, recognizing the organization’s work to protect wild rice from patenting and genetic engineering.

A graduate of Harvard and Antioch universities, she has written extensively on Native American and environmental issues. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA and is presently an advisory board member for the Trust for Public Lands Native Lands Program as well as a board member of the Christensen Fund. She has written five books, including “Recovering the Sacred” and “Last Standing Woman.”

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