Additional chairs were brought out for the Memorial Union’s Sun Room to accommodate the growing crowd that had assembled to hear one of the world’s most famous American Indian activists speak.

Winona LaDuke, author, former vice presidential candidate and one of Time magazine’s top 50 most promising leaders under 40 years of age in 1994, spoke on Monday to what quickly became a near-capacity crowd. She delivered a talk titled “Global Environmental Justice, Native Peoples and Women.”

The speech was presented as part of the 2003 Institute on World Affairs Series.

As the program began, Renae Schmitt, treasurer of one of the events sponsors, the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, introduced LaDuke and presented her with a brightly colored blanket symbolic of the Native American tradition of giving gifts to visitors.

LaDuke, author of several books including the fictional novel “Last Woman Standing” and the historical “All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life,” began her speech in the tongue of her ancestors, the Ojibwe, thanking the school for having her and saying she belonged to the Bear Clan and was a resident of the White Earth reservation.

From there, she related to the crowd some of the plights currently facing those living on the White Earth reservation, speaking about the battle to regain control of federally held tribal lands.

Some success has been made on this front, most notably the July 8 release of 800 acres by the state of Minnesota to the Ojibwe. The transaction, which fulfilled the promise made by the state and the U.S. Congress to return 10,000 acres to area tribes, was in large part due to LaDuke’s efforts, and those of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, which she founded.

But, she said, there were still great lengths to go.

“Recovering our land base is probably going to take about another hundred years,” she said. “But I’m not going anywhere, and the community isn’t going anywhere.”

She spoke about problems faced by the Ojibwe community as they attempted to maintain their agricultural heritage, speaking about issues faced by the reservation as it attempted to plant and raise the variety of corn it had grown for hundreds of years. A nearby farm, which grew genetically modified corn, threatened to contaminate the Ojibwe crops, causing potential legal and copyright complications with the genetically engineered corn’s manufacturer.

“We went to all this work to save the corn. We don’t want to mix it up all of a sudden,” she said.

LaDuke focused on wild rice, a spiritual food as well as an economic product of her tribe.

“Rice is our most important grain, as a people,” LaDuke said. “It’s used to tell the story of our migration.”

She is currently board co-chairwoman for the Indigenous Women’s Network and director of the Honor the Earth Fund. In 2000, she ran for vice president with Ralph Nader on the Green Party’s ticket.