Chicago Indymedia : http://chicago.indymedia.org/archive
Chicago Indymedia

News :: [none]

Winona La Duke is Speaking in MPLS on May 7th

Winona La Duke will speak at the University of MN on May 7th about the bio-piracy that is happening to the indigenous community.

Winona LaDuke: Wild Rice Threatened? At U of MN in Minneapolis, MN, May 7

North Country Cooperative Presents:
Bio-colonialism: Wild Rice Threatened?
Featuring: Winona LaDuke

Tuesday May 7, 7pm
Wiley Hall Room 125
University of Minnesota West Bank Campus, MPLS, MN
For more info contact: Cara Saunders, (612) 722 5518

Environmental and social activist Winona LaDuke will be speaking at the University of Minnesota's Wiley Hall on Tuesday, May 7th. Her lecture will address issues facing wild rice production for native growers in Minnesota.

The Norcal Wild Rice Company in California has secured two patents on wild rice production and certain components of a variety of wild rice. Furthermore, Ron Phillips of the University of Minnesota has mapped the wild rice genome. (This study was underwritten by seed/chemical conglomerates Monsanto and Dupont).

These patents and current research may increase the likelihood of male sterility, requiring local harvesters to purchase seed. This is not currently necessary due to the rice's natural reproductive process. Native growers also fear hybridization of wild rice with patty rice, as this would facilitate the man-made production of wild rice and could lead to the extinction of real wild rice.

These recent developments worry the Anishinaabeg and other cultures throughout the region and beyond. Major implications of this research include: indigenous rights to land and their economic survival,corporatization of nature, and the survival of wild rice. At this event Winona LaDuke, who ran for vice president in 1996 and 2000 with Ralph Nader under the Green Party, will be speaking on behalf of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, of which she is the founding director.
Their website is: www.welrp.org

North Country Cooperative Grocery will be sponsoring this event, part of a monthly series recently began by members of the coop. North Country proudly sells Manoomin (wild rice) from the White Earth Reservation, a product that reflects the coop's food policy, which is committed to social,environmental and economic justice.

This Free! event will be Tuesday, May 7th, 7:00-9:00pm, at Wiley Hall room 125 University of Minnesota West Bank Campus. For more information, please
contact: Cara Saunders (612) 722 5518.

Plans are underway for a rally and press conference to further educate the public about this threat to biodiversity and community sovereignty.

It will coincide with, yet another, pro biotech conference taking place at the U of MN.

The rally will be on May 20th at 11:30 AM at the Radisson Hotel Metrodome in Minneapolis, 615 Washington Ave SE.
 
 

Donate

Views

Account Login

Media Centers

 

This site made manifest by dadaIMC software