I just received the agenda for the Native Peoples Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop II, an event scheduled for Nov. 18-21 in Shakopee, Minn. The workshop will bring together some of the greatest minds working at the environmental forefront of Indian Country. Look and you will see presenters and panelists that include people, such as Henrietta Mann, Dan Wildcat, Winona LaDuke, Oren Lyons, Debby Tewa, Billy Frank, Gail Small, Pat Spears, Manny Pino and Faith Gemmill. The discussions promise to be rich, with talks centering on clean energy, climate change, concerns of tribal communities and sustainable housing. I’ve been invited to help spread the word and I am gladly doing so. We all need to step up and actively participate in “reaffirming our affinity to the land,” a topic to be discussed in a keynote speech by environmentalist Winona LaDuke of White Earth, Minn. I have also attached a video of LaDuke here, a one-hour presentation she did at the University of Nebraska this spring. ( I can’t guarantee the veracity of the link. The Web page is a work in progress I’ve been told). Meanwhile, if you can, watch it, listen and learn! The video was done as part of the Native Daughters, a project of Joe Starita’s journalism class at the University of Nebraska.
The group who will gather in Minnesota have been asked to present their recommendations to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December in Copenhagen.
Jodi Rave