Native American activist to deliver peace lecture

ORONO – Native American activist, environmentalist and author Winona LaDuke, from the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota, will be in Orono on Tuesday, Dec. 6, to deliver two public presentations as the 2005 Howard Schonberger Peace and Social Justice Memorial Lecturer at the University of Maine.

Both lectures are free, open to the public and handicap accessible.

LaDuke will present:

. “Motherhood, Politics, and the Environment,” 12:15-1:30 p.m. Dec. 6, Bangor Room, Memorial Union.

. The Schonberger Memorial Lecture, 7:30 p.m. Dec. 6, room 100, Donald P. Corbett Business Building.

A graduate of Harvard and Antioch universities and two-time vice presidential candidate for the Green Party with Ralph Nader, LaDuke has written extensively on Native American and environmental issues.

Her books include “Last Standing Woman,” fiction; “All Our Relations,” nonfiction; “In the Sugarbush,” children’s nonfiction; and “The Winona LaDuke Reader.” Her most recent publication, “Recovering the Sacred,” was released by South End Press this year.

A reception and book signing will follow the evening lecture at UM.

An enrolled member of the Mississippi Band of Anishinaabeg [Ojibwe], LaDuke is program director of Honor the Earth, a Native American foundation working primarily on environmental and energy policy issues.

She also is the founding director of White Earth Land Recovery Project, the largest reservation-based nonprofit organization in Minnesota. She has worked for two decades on the land issues of the White Earth Reservation, including litigation policy and creation of a land trust.

The White Earth Land Recovery Project was partially funded by the Reebok Human Rights Award she received in 1989. LaDuke and the project have received the International Slow Food Award from the Italian-based association that promotes food and wine culture and defends food and agricultural biodiversity worldwide for the project’s efforts to protect wild rice and local biodiversity.

LaDuke also has received the Thomas Merton Award and was named one of Time magazine’s 50 most promising leaders under 40 in 1994, Ms. Magazine’s Woman of the Year award in 1997 and winner of the Global Green award among others. She is the parent of five children.

For more information about LaDuke’s lecture schedule or the Howard Schonberger Peace and Social Justice Memorial Lecturer, call 581-1228.