UBC-Okanagan Water Week Event

Indigenous Thinking on Sustainability in a Climate-Challenged World

Date: Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: Rotary Centre for the Arts -- 421 Cawston Ave, Kelowna, B.C.
Tickets: Tickets are free and will be available as of Feb. 25 -- they must be picked up or ordered in advance from the Rotary Centre for the Arts box office (call 250-717-5304).

Winona LaDuke, a Native American activist applauded worldwide for her work on environmental and social issues, is the World Water Week presenter in UBC Okanagan’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

On March 25 during World Water Week, LaDuke will speak in Kelowna about indigenous views of the environment, efforts to protect land on the White Earth Ojibwe Reservation in Minnesota where she lives, and how thinking seven generations ahead would impact our world’s natural systems -- particularly water, agriculture and energy.

"I'll talk about the challenges we will be facing in terms of the intersection of these issues with climate change," says LaDuke, who has twice been a U.S. vice-presidential candidate.

LaDuke received the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1989 and used that $20,000 prize and other grants to begin the White Earth Land Recovery Project, buying back lands promised by U.S. government treaty more than 100 years ago but never transferred to the tribal communities. In 1994, she was among Time’s 50 most promising leaders under the age of 40. LaDuke and the White Earth Land Recovery Project recently received the prestigious International Slow Food Award for their work with protecting wild rice and local biodiversity.

"I will use the examples of our community at White Earth, and other relocalization and sustainability initiatives," she says, "as well as larger international strategies and proposals to address the creation of sustainable world systems."

Date: Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: Rotary Centre for the Arts -- 421 Cawston Ave, Kelowna, B.C.
Tickets: Tickets are free and will be available as of Feb. 25 -- they must be picked up or ordered in advance from the Rotary Centre for the Arts box office (call 250-717-5304).

Box office hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Saturday, and noon to 8 p.m. Sunday.