Tribes in the U.S. and First
Nations in Canada are battling big energy interests:
Native American groups
increasingly at the center of fights over oil and gas.
Back when good land was
fertile land for growing crops.
The Great Plains and interior
West, a dry, dusty, freezing cold in winter and broiling hot in summer had
little to offer.
Now, however, the
Europeans and their descendants lust for oil and gas to provide electricity,
heat, and fuel for internal combustion engines.
Guess where a lot of it is to
be found?
On tribal lands, or near them,
requiring pipes, tracks, or roads to be laid through them.
In the 17th, 18th, and early
19th centuries, European settlers stole a lot of land from Native Americans.
They killed them, they cheated
them, and they robbed them of most of the continent.
But
they made one mistake.
Back then good land was
fertile land for growing crops they of course took it all.
The Great Plains and interior
West, dry, dusty, freezing cold in winter and broiling hot in summer had little
to offer.
Except for a great place for
prisons (reservations) for all that was left of the first peoples of the land.
Now, however, the
Europeans and their descendants lust for oil and gas to provide electricity,
heat, and fuel for internal combustion engines.
Guess where a lot of it is to
be found?
On tribal lands, or near them,
requiring pipes, tracks, or roads to be laid through them.
Corporations and pliant
local officials, today’s equivalent of conquistadors and European crowns are
trying to gain control of what’s left of indigenous peoples’ land.
“There are more than 600 major
resource projects worth $650-billion planned in Western Canada over the next
decade.
But relations with First
Nations may be a major hurdle for those developments,”
reports the Toronto Globe and
Mail.
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