Indians at the 2016
voting booths
Who did you vote
for?
Far too many had a
50/50 shot at getting it right.
Most got it wrong.
Remember, he is not
my president.
Activists hold signs
as they protest in front of the White House
against the Keystone XL pipeline
January 13, 2015, in Washington, D.C.
Photo: Alex
Wong/Getty Images
Tribes Unite Across
U.S. and Canada to Oppose Keystone XL in Declaration
It is intended as a
message to President Donald Trump and may be sent to the United Nations.
MAY 17, 2017
Today (May 17),
tribal leaders are gathering in Calgary, Alberta to sign a 16-page
declaration against the Keystone XL Pipeline.
From the United
States are the Great Sioux Nation and Ponca tribes and from Canada,
the Blackfoot Confederacy. They will sign the “Declaration Opposing Oil Sand
Expansion and the Construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline” as a message to
President Donald
Trump, reports Native
News Online.
"There is a
historic union between first Americans in Canada and Native Americans in the
United States," said Casey Camp-Horinek, a councilwoman with the Ponca
tribe in Oklahoma, to The
Associated Press. "Long before a border ever existed on a map, a
fictitious line on a map, we were a united peoples in our approach to care of
Mother Earth."
Pipeline opponents
seemingly won the battle against the 1,179 mile-long pipeline in 2015 when
former President Barack
Obama rejected developer TransCanada’s permit application.
However, Trump entered the White House January 20
and
signed a presidential memorandum to repeal that just four days later.
and
signed a presidential memorandum to repeal that just four days later.
With
this declaration, indigenous people across North America want Trump to know why
this pipeline is destructive to their culture, safety and history. The preamble
reads, per Native News:
https://www.colorlines.com/articles/tribes-unite-across-us-and-canada-oppose-keystone-xl-declaration
“We,
The First People, were and remain the stewards of the land and with this
Declaration renew our vow to carry that sacred obligation in defense of our
Mother, the Earth, and all born of her body and nurtured at her breast who are
no longer heard amidst the dissonance of industrialization and corporate
domination.”
One of
the declaration’s strongest demands revolves around treaty rights. Tribal
leaders want consultation processes to change and require consent. Currently,
companies such as TransCanada may include a Native American Relations
Policy or Aboriginal Relations Policy (both of which TransCanada has), but a
tribe’s rejection doesn’t factor in significantly. Tribal members might send
this declaration to the United Nations, the AP reports.
Currently, the $8 billion pipeline is not guaranteed to
happen. Groups have sued the federal government for the permit it issued TransCanada. In Nebraska, the project has
still not been approved. Opponents have been preparing to build camps—similar to what was seen in North
Dakota against the Dakota Access
Pipeline—along the proposed pipeline route.
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