Wild rice and wind power are helping an Ojibwe community create a future on their terms.

May 21, 2008 by LAV in America

[img_assist|nid=656|title=Winona LaDuke, Founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP)|desc=Winona LaDuke, Founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP), is working for food and energy security in her Northern Minnesota community.|link=popup|align=left|width=168|height=239] Adopting the tenets of sustainability, WELRP is creating and implementing a local food and energy plan. The respected Native American activist and author encourages others to establish locally-centered economies to weather the storm of peak oil and foster a community they can be proud of.

 "We want more choice than what kind of breakfast cereal to use and what kind of shampoo to buy," she says. "Making the future requires us to engage. It is the only way to having something sustainable."

 Embracing the traditions of ricing, growing corn, and making maple syrup is key to food security for this Ojibwe community. The project brings generations together in the spirit that healthy foods support a healthy people.

LaDuke's community faces challenges—currently one-third have diabetes, there is high unemployment, it is the poorest region in their county, and there is a high youth arrest rate.

But the project is working to change those statistics while acknowledging: "Wealth is not just about money. Wealth is about quality of life."

  Through the food security program they have been able to provide 50 per cent of local food needs and eliminate the federal school lunch program, which LaDuke joked was sending pancakes wrapped in plastic and doused in high fructose corn syrup to children in a community that already has rampant diabetes rates.

The initiative is focusing on traditional fare like wild rice and flint corn. The rice is harvested using traditional methods, canoes and sticks.

"The creator gave us rice on a lake," LaDuke says. "Wild rice is our sacred food. We must protect our wild rice."

The project won the International Slow Food Award in 2003 for their campaign to protect wild rice from genetic engineering and patenting. LaDuke and her community continue to "battle to protect our sacred food" as a Minnesota university is aggressively trying to genetically engineer wild rice. LaDuke says the problem is the genetically engineered rice cannot be contained and could impact their wild crop.

With oil prices skyrocketing, people need to look at ways of growing food that is less dependent on fossil fuels and is more concerned about addressing climate change.

" If you're not looking at climate change, you've got your head in the sand," she says. "The industrialized food economy is based on fossil fuels ... Food insecurity is about to increase dramatically."     Finding solutions when it comes to planting means looking to the past. "Don't get fancier, go simple," LaDuke says. She advocates planting heritage seeds as they are not reliant on petroleum, chemicals or irrigation.

The second part of the White Earth plan is looking at ways to meet their own energy needs. "We wrote an energy plan for our tribe," LaDuke says. "A local energy plan is essential to making peace in our world."

The plan looks at biofuels, biodiesel, solar and wind energy. Many native communities have great potential for wind energy. Along the way LaDuke has been fighting against the creation of more coal-powered energy plants.

"In the end it is this question of who is going to determine our destiny," she says. "Create a future that allows the future generation to live in dignity."

Looking for alternatives to oil she bought her son a "biodiesel grease Mercedes" joking there is never a problem getting your hands on french fry oil.   She suggests ways people can get involved from the simple to the more challenging: • plant a garden • clean up a river • work to make sure everything is not genetically engineered • figure out how to get PCBs out of the lakes. • eliminate lawns. LaDuke says a third of water used in cities is for lawns. "How about some gardens," she says. "That connects you to something that is real."

The White Earth Land Recovery Project aims to recover the land base of the White Earth Indian Reservation, while preserving and restoring traditional practices of sound land stewardship, language fluency, community development, and strengthening spiritual and cultural heritage.

 "If we can do it, anybody can do it," LaDuke encourages.

LaDuke's most recent book is Recovering The Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming. She spoke at Green Festival 08 in Chicago May 18 at Navy Pier. Check out Native Harvest or Green Festivals for more information.