Today, a number of Native tribes, from the Lakota in the Dakotas to the Iroquois Confederacy in New York to the Anishinaabeg in Wisconsin, battle to preserve the environment for those who are yet to come. The next seven generations, the Lakota say, depend upon it.“Traditionally, we’re told that as we live in this world, we have to be careful for the next seven generations,” says Loretta Cook. “I don’t want my grandkids to be glowing and say, ‘We have all these bad things happening to us because you didn’t say something about it.’
Part of this family and spiritual obligation to preserve
the environment for future generations has taken the shape of renewable energy efforts and re-localized Native economies.Solar for local self-sufficiency, environmental justice, and you can just do it now.“If nuclear power is the answer, I don’t know what the question was,” LaDuke said recently at a lecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “If you want peace, you need some kind of economy based on justice—not just with the people, but with the natural world.”
LaDuke and other “environmental activists” hope to create that justice, that re-localized economy, through wind and solar energy on Native reservations. Locally produced, neither wind nor solar power “need to be purchased by Halliburton,” LaDuke says. “If you’re waiting for the guys in Washington to come up with a plan, you’re going to be waiting a long time.”
LaDuke also sees the connection between renewable energy and local food:
Meanwhile, the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, under the leadership of Anishinaabeg leaders like LaDuke, is currently a hotbed for Native sustainability efforts. Through the White Earth Land Recovery Project, the reservation hosts not only a 20-kilowatt wind turbine, but also works to support weatherization and alternative heating, especially solar panels, for local homes and housing units. Major efforts also have been taken by the recovery project to make traditional food sources available on the reservation.Local energy, local food, local health.“Our people spend a quarter of our money on food at Wal-Mart,” LaDuke said. “When you buy from local producers, that money circulates in your community…Food prices will keep going up, so we need to keep it local. And it helps with diabetes and other health-related issues.”
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