Winona LaDuke lives on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota and is the author of the novel Last Standing Woman. She was the U.S. Green Party's vice-presidential candidate in 2000. "There's a direct relationship between cultural diversity and bio-diversity," according to LaDuke, "and sustainability is predicated on both."
Now that the wolf population is growing in many areas, hunters want to have a season set aside to kill them. LaDuke is involved in a campaign to save the wolves since for many Native Americans they are spiritual teachers about the extended family system. She also believes in a project to restore buffalo herds in the West.
LaDuke talks about a seventh generation amendment that would set aside public lands for the future instead of allowing private corporations to appropriate forests and other areas for their own profits. This indigenous interest in the big picture is something politicians should be dealing with right now. The Green Party stands alone in its condemnation of allowing public policy to be determined by the rich and the privileged. Although LaDuke has been called a "radical" she calls herself a "conservative" — one who adheres to a traditional and value-laden relationship to the earth and all of its inhabitants.