Native American activist argues for changes to Canada’s sustainability practices

Canada’s approach to the environment and natural resources is wasteful and unsustainable, said prominent Native American activist and author Winona LaDuke, speaking to an audience of 300 people in the Telus Centre on Monday evening.

LaDuke, whose presentation was part of the University of Alberta’s International Week and Sustainability Speaker Series, said that the Native American relationship with the environment greatly differs from that of mainstream society.

“It’s a difference between making a living and making a killing, and by and large, this capitalistic system is set up to make a kill,” LaDuke said, referring to Canada’s over-harvesting of resource like fish and fossil fuels.

“There’s an entire absence of responsibility in the behaviour. It is only about rights and entitlement. Just because (you) have the right, because it was allocated to you by some government to over-harvest fish in the north Pacific, does not mean (that) you are entitled to it.”

LaDuke contrasted this point with traditional Native American culture, and proposed a paradigm shift, where humans give back to nature as much as they take from it.

Her notion of sustainability is less about economic growth and accumulation, and more about having sustainable and durable relations with the natural world.

“You have this reciprocal relationship, (and) there’s this set of responsibilities that’s associated with it,” LaDuke said. “You don’t have a title to take. You have this gift that is given to you, and you have responsibility.”

LaDuke said the main implication of this shift is about looking to the future, and that maintaining a reciprocal relationship with nature should ensure society’s long-term sustainability.  Previous bad decisions, she said, will be felt very soon — by 2020, 20 per cent of the world’s GDP will be spent dealing with the results of climate change.

LaDuke also said that there is an obvious difference of opinion between Native Americans and white society when it comes to forests — her reserve has fought in the past to keep forests standing in Minnesota, but white society views them by their monetary value.

“We live in a society that believes humans are entitled to the natural world,” she said. “No one else has equal standing or footing. So, if you are a fish in the Athabasca River, or a fish in the Columbia River, you don’t have much of a shot, because somehow there’s this perception of human entitlement that’s pervasive.”

Part of that entitlement, LaDuke said, is being wasteful with resources — Canadians use the most energy in the world on a per person basis.

She added that 57 per cent of all electricity generated in the United States goes to waste, given that it’s usually produced in a central location and sent long distances.

“In the United States and Canada, more money is made by the more you sell, not by how efficient you are,” Laduke said, adding that to achieve long-term sustainability, a greatly-decentralized power grid using wind energy is needed.

LaDuke closed her lecture by noting that future sustainability will need to go beyond what’s best for personal happiness. Instead, it will need to be about nature and all living things.

“It’s just not about me being happy. It’s a question of inter-generational justice, and inter-species justice, because an economy has to account for all of that. It cannot just be about us.”

© Gateway Student Journalism Society — All Rights Reserved