John,

For nearly four decades, Winona LaDuke has fought for a simple but powerful idea: the people who belong to a place should have a say in what happens to it. An Anishinaabe environmental leader, economist, author, farmer, and organizer, Winona has spent her career fighting for Indigenous sovereignty, recovering Tribal lands, protecting clean water, challenging pipelines and extraction, and building local economies rooted in the health of the land.

On Friday, October 2nd, she’ll bring that perspective to Utah as the keynote speaker at the Land We Share Summit. There couldn’t be a more important moment for this conversation.

Photo of Winona LaDuke.

Three million acres were stripped from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments—more than 90% of their original protections. The current administration is also moving to eliminate the Roadless Rule, putting millions of acres of national forest at risk of new roads, logging, and development.

Here in Utah, the Little Cottonwood Canyon gondola remains on the table. Moe’s Valley, a beloved climbing landscape outside St. George, continues to face development pressure. A new generation of massive data centers is forcing communities to ask hard questions about who gets to use our finite water, energy, and land, and who bears the cost.

Photo of last year's Indigenous Voices panel discussion. Photo by Jo Savage. 

Different places. Different fights. But underneath them are a lot of the same questions:

Who gets to decide what happens to a place? Whose knowledge counts? How do we build protections strong enough to last an election cycle? These are questions Winona LaDuke has spent a lifetime confronting. And they’re at the heart of this year’s Land We Share Summit. 

This moment calls for more than defending one place at a time. It calls for building the relationships, political power, and fresh perspectives we need to protect and promote a more just, flourishing future.

This is the point of Land We Share: Tribal leaders, ranchers, scientists, recreationists, conservationists, elected officials, organizers, and people who simply love these places don’t always find themselves in the same room. On October 2nd, they will.

See you there!

Alma