In the dying moments of the twentieth century, a spirit and a lifeway prevail in the northwoods.

Not in spite of it all - the rapacious culture eaters, the loggers, the miners -

but because that spirit and lifeway have sustained a community for generations.

Like the eternal Spring, after the freezing Winter, there is always a rebirth. Minobimaatisiiwin. Mi'iw.

                                                                                                                            -Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations.

Winona LaDuke is an Anishinabe environmental activist and writer who belongs to the Makwa Dodaem (Bear Clan) of the Mississippi Band of the White Earth reservation in Minnesota. She was born in 1959. Her father was Vincent LaDuke, an Indian activist and actor in Western films. She grew up in Los Angeles, California and Ashland, Oregon. She attended Harvard, where she became active in Indian environmental issues. At the age of 18 she addressed the UN on Indian issues for the first time. She was a leader in the successful struggle against the proposed James Bay II hydroelectric project that threatened rivers running through Cree and Innu land. After graduating in 1982 with a BA in native economic development she moved to White Earth Reservation in Minnesota.

When she returned to White Earth she became active in litigation to recover reservation land. The White Earth reservation was created by an 1867 treaty that promised the Anishinabe 837,000 acres. However, the Nelson Act of 1889 opened the reservation to allotment and most of it was appropriated by the lumber industry. In the 1930s the government took additional land to form the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge. Within a few decades over 90% of the original acreage of the reservation had been lost to non-Anishinabe landowners. Legal action to take back the land was not successful, so when LaDuke received the Reebok International Human Rights Award in 1989 she used the award money to start the White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP). WELRP utilizes a variety of methods to reclaim the original land base of the reservation. So far the project has purchased 1,000 acres of land and the federal government returned 10,000 of the 250,000 acres of Anishinabe land in its possession. LaDuke has also used the organization to spearhead a variety of projects relating to environmental protection, revival of traditional farming, and cultural preservation.

She is also a founding member of Honor the Earth, a national Native American Foundation that advocates, raises public support, and creates funding for native environmental groups. She is co-chair of the Indigenous Women's Network, former board member of Greenpeace, USA, and served as environmental program officer for the Seventh Generation Fund. In 1996 and 2000 she ran for vice president under the Green Party ticket.

She has published many articles and books, including a novel, Last Standing Woman, a story of seven generations of Anishinabe on the White Earth reservation. Most of her work is nonfiction: All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life, The Winona LaDuke Reader, and In the Sugarbush. Her most recent book is Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming (2005).

She has received many awards for her work, including the Global Green Award, the International Slow Food Award, and the Thomas Merton Award. In 1994 she was named one of America's 50 most promising leaders under 40 and in 1997 she was named Woman of the Year by Ms. Magazine.

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