Our tipis are packed, and our horses are ready.
Next Tuesday, April 22, 2014, Honor is joining with Native peoples and ranchers (called the Cowboy and Indian Alliance) from along the pipeline route in Washington, DC, to show Obama and the world that Native Nations will stand firm in asserting our human and constitutionally protected treaty rights in saying NO to the Keystone XL Pipeline. We won’t be leaving DC until the voices of our people are heard. We invite you to visit us at the tipi camp on the National Mall during the week, but urge you to participate on Saturday the 26th in a day of action. Click here to RSVP, and to donate to Honor the Earth’s work to support this action, and the frontline groups opposing this pipeline in their territories.
Just as we keep a close watch on the Keystone XL, we must also work to oppose the pipelines of the north, many of which are as big or bigger than the KXL. Honor has been focusing our efforts on the Sandpiper pipeline, and has filed a Motion to Extend the Time, a Motion for an Alternative Route, and the Memorandum of Law in Support of Lack of Jurisdiction for Usufructuary Property Rights Protected by Federal Treaties. We’ve been active in the media lately on this issue, which you can view here:
This past six months at Honor the Earth has been breathtaking. Breathtaking, in that we’ve summoned up our courage, trained new young leaders, and joined with local lakeshore owners and farmers to challenge the biggest fracked oil pipelines and some huge tar sands pipelines that threaten our water, our sacred wild rice, our economy and our way of life. Minnesota is becoming the pipeline battleground:
The Alberta Clipper pipeline is already in, and the Enbridge Corporation hopes to double the pipeline’s size to carry 880,000 barrels per day of tar sands oil. Line 3 is proposed to double its capacity. The Sandpiper pipeline is proposed, and will cut through our wild rice territory on the White Earth reservation, moving 375,000 barrels per day of fracked oil from the Bakken Oil Fields. And now the corporation wants to do more. Minnesota is today the Canadian oil super-highway, and this is a threat to our water – and everything else, too. The Enbridge corporation has had over 800 leaks, including the Kalamazoo Spill, which was the largest pipeline spill in US history. This company wants to move more oil, and it wants to move it into Lake Superior, adding tankers and refinery capacity, to the place where one fifth of the worlds’ fresh water is. We are saying no, and we need your help. Please join us.
Our lakes and rivers are healthy. Minnesota has some of the most amazing water in the world and we believe it should stay healthy, full of wild rice, ducks and water lilies. This fall, we rode our horses on the Enbridge Alberta Clipper and Sandpiper lines to draw attention to the pipelines, and to protect our Mother Earth. We met a lot of people, had meals in many communities, and learned that people want their water protected, and want to help. We put up billboards to draw attention to the issue, and to challenge a corporation whose proposal threatens all of us.
Let me tell you who we are. We are Anishinaabe people from Minnesota. We are wild rice and medicinal plant harvesters, we are mothers and grandmothers, and we are intent upon protecting all of this land. We are finding that we are not alone. This past fall, we began to work with landowners in Carlton and Hubbard County, and together we are challenging the largest oil transporter in North America. Together, we are at every hearing, asking lakeshore associations, counties and public officials to protect our water and our future. But we need your help.
Honor the Earth is a small organization, but we are committed and agile. We are a Native environmental organization, and we are here on the White Earth reservation. Your funds will go to our work and our combined efforts with all people from the north. This is our collective future. Stand with us to protect Mother Earth.
FOR LIVE COVERAGE OF THE CAMP, FOLLOW DC MEDIA:
