tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/north-dakota-access-pipeline-31315/articlesNorth Dakota Access Pipeline – The Conversation2021-02-16T13:28:22Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1537752021-02-16T13:28:22Z2021-02-16T13:28:22Z‘Indian Country’ is excited about the first Native American secretary of the interior – and the promise she has for addressing issues of importance to all Americans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383834/original/file-20210211-17-1j0wf8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C3945%2C2970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland speaks in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Oct. 1, 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/native-american-candidate-deb-haaland-who-is-running-for-news-photo/1044568812?adppopup=true">Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Biden’s nomination of <a href="https://haaland.house.gov/about">U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico</a> to lead the <a href="https://www.doi.gov/">Department of the Interior</a> is historic on many levels. Haaland, an enrolled member of the <a href="https://www.lagunapueblo-nsn.gov/">Pueblo of Laguna</a>, was one of the first Native American women elected to Congress, along with U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas. And if confirmed, she will be the first Native American to head the agency that administers the nation’s <a href="https://www.bia.gov/frequently-asked-questions">trust responsibility</a> to American Indians and Alaska Natives. </p>
<p>Indian Country has a significant history with the Interior Department that has <a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska-paperback/9780803287129/">more often been bad than good</a>. But <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/debra_haaland/412800">Haaland’s record</a> shows that she is committed to making progress on larger challenges that affect all Americans. She has been especially vocal on climate, environmental protection, public lands and natural resource management.</p>
<p>As the executive director of <a href="https://aipi.asu.edu/">one of the only Indigenous policy institutes in the nation</a>, a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Bc-RS6QAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of Indigenous studies</a> and a citizen of the <a href="https://www.chickasaw.tv/series/profiles-of-a-nation?ref=durl">Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma</a>, I’ve been acutely aware of Haaland’s work since she was elected to Congress in 2018. I’ve tracked her leadership on issues such as <a href="https://haaland.house.gov/media/press-releases/haaland-khanna-aim-achieve-broadband-all">broadband access</a> and infrastructure for Native nations.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Accepting President Biden’s nomination as secretary of the interior, U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland observed, “This moment is profound when we consider the fact that a former secretary of the interior once proclaimed his goal to ‘civilize or exterminate’” Native Americans.</span></figcaption>
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<p>To Indian Country, Haaland is viewed as everybody’s “auntie.” Having her in leadership gives Native America a seat at the policymaking table. For New Mexico she has been a <a href="https://debforcongress.com/meet-deb/accomplishments/">productive member of Congress</a>, reelected in 2020 with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-new-mexico-house-district-1.html">over 58% of the vote</a>. And while a few Western senators have called her views “<a href="https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2021/02/08/senator-steve-daines-threatens-block-haaland-interior-secretary-confirmation/4439722001/">radical</a>,” I believe that Native issues are American issues. If Haaland is confirmed as interior secretary, many observers expect her to <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/12/17/biden-to-pick-rep-haaland-as-interior-secretary">provide bold leadership</a> for an agency that oversees what is arguably the heart of America: its land.</p>
<h2>A big portfolio</h2>
<p>Haaland grew up in a military family, raised a daughter as a single parent and worked in tribal administration before entering politics. A self-described “proud progressive,” she <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/1505620/proud-progressive-haaland-seeks-2nd-term.html">supports policies including</a> a ban on hydraulic fracking, the Green New Deal, a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and a national single-payer health care system. </p>
<p>Haaland’s knowledge of Native and Western issues are important credentials for heading the Interior Department. <a href="https://www.doi.gov/whoweare/history">Created in 1849</a>, the agency manages U.S. cultural and natural resources. It has nine technical bureaus, eight offices and 70,000 employees, including many scientists and natural resource management experts. </p>
<p>The department’s portfolio includes national parks and wildlife refuges, multiuse public lands, ocean energy development, regulation of surface mining and mine cleanups and research conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. It oversees the use of <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45480.pdf">more than 480 million acres of public lands</a>, mainly in Western states, 700 million acres of subsurface minerals and 1.7 billion acres of the outer continental shelf along U.S. coastlines.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383851/original/file-20210211-21-1pe8y93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of public lands managed by the Interior Department." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383851/original/file-20210211-21-1pe8y93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383851/original/file-20210211-21-1pe8y93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383851/original/file-20210211-21-1pe8y93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383851/original/file-20210211-21-1pe8y93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383851/original/file-20210211-21-1pe8y93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383851/original/file-20210211-21-1pe8y93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383851/original/file-20210211-21-1pe8y93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Interior Department oversees more than 480 million acres of public lands, mostly in the Western U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/printable-map-department-interior-lands">USGS</a></span>
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<p>One key departmental mission is fulfilling the <a href="https://www.bia.gov/frequently-asked-questions">trust responsibility</a> – a legal obligation that the U.S. has to uphold promises made to tribal nations in exchange for their lands. This political relationship is derived from 370 treaties between the federal government and Native nations.</p>
<p>Tribal nations are part of the family of governments in the U.S., along with the federal and state governments. There are <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/30/2020-01707/indian-entities-recognized-by-and-eligible-to-receive-services-from-the-united-states-bureau-of">574 federally recognized sovereign tribal nations</a> that have a nation-to-nation relationship with the U.S. government via the trust relationship. They are located in 35 states on 334 reservations. Tribal lands total 100 million acres.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.ncai.org/tribalnations/introduction/Indian_Country_101_Updated_February_2019.pdf">National Congress of American Indians</a>, the trust responsibility covers two significant interrelated areas: </p>
<p>– Protecting tribal property and assets that the U.S. government holds in trust for the benefit of tribal nations. </p>
<p>– Guaranteeing tribal lands and resources as a base for distinct tribal cultures, including water for irrigation, access to fish and game and income from natural resource development.</p>
<p>The term “Indian Country” is a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-677-indian-country-defined">legal designation of tribal lands</a>. It is also a philosophical definition of where we as Indigenous people are from. </p>
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<h2>Native nations and the Interior Department</h2>
<p>Indian Country and the Interior Department have had a history fraught with controversy that makes this nomination particularly powerful. </p>
<p>One of the most significant issues has been the agency’s <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/jmd/legacy/2014/05/08/houserept-102-499-1992.pdf">long-standing mismanagement</a> of Indian lands on behalf of hundreds of thousands of individual Native Americans since the late 1880s. In 2009, the Obama administration negotiated a US$3.4 billion settlement in a <a href="https://www.voanews.com/archive/us-settles-historic-native-american-lawsuit">long-running class-action lawsuit</a> against the Interior Department. Elise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation, brought the suit on behalf of more than 250,000 plaintiffs. </p>
<p>A current issue is the struggle over <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2021/02/04/first-oak-flat-court-hearing-follows-2-day-prayer-vigil/6653392002/">Oak Flat</a>, a sacred Apache location in southern Arizona that is about to be mined for copper. The site is both culturally and archaeologically significant. Several different groups are suing to prevent mining there, and members of Congress have <a href="https://naturalresources.house.gov/media/press-releases/chairman-grijalva-sen-sanders-introduce-bills-to-prevent-mining-activities-on-sacred-apache-tribal-land-given-away-in-2015-defense-bill">introduced legislation</a> to block the federal government from transferring title to the land to mining companies.</p>
<p>Another example is the struggle over the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/21/dakota-access-pipeline-joe-biden-indigenous-environment">Dakota Access Pipeline</a>, which members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and other water protectors argue <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/09/dapl-dakota-sitting-rock-sioux/499178/">threatens Native burial sites and water supplies</a>. Still another controversy is the Trump administration’s decision to shrink the <a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/533374-native-americans-push-biden-to-restore-us">Bears Ears National Monument</a> in Utah, which protects sites that are <a href="https://bearsearscoalition.org/ancestral-and-modern-day-land-users/">sacred to more than 20 tribes and pueblos</a>. President Biden is <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2021/01/25/president-joe-bidens/">reviewing the Bears Ears decision</a>, and tribes and environmental advocates are urging him to <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/biden-holds-key-to-dakota-access-pipelines-fate-after-ruling">shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline</a>.</p>
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<p>Beyond these high-profile cases, Interior Department actions affect many other facets of tribal governance. For example, the <a href="https://www.bia.gov/">Bureau of Indian Affairs</a> oversees tribal gaming compacts and right-of-way infrastructure decisions for projects that cross Native lands. </p>
<p>Many of the agency’s resource stewardship activities also affect tribes. The department recently approved a <a href="https://usbr.gov/newsroom/newsrelease/detail.cfm?RecordID=66103">drought contingency plan</a> for the Colorado River that will impose water conservation requirements on multiple states, counties and tribes. And resource development proposals often affect <a href="https://news.azpm.org/p/news-topical-nature/2021/1/22/187818-controversial-oak-flat-mine-project-moves-closer-to-reality/">lands that are important to Native Americans</a> even if they are not officially part of a reservation, but are traditional homelands or sacred spaces. </p>
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<p>Since the trust relationship includes a relationship between governments, all federal agencies must fulfill it. President Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/26/memorandum-on-tribal-consultation-and-strengthening-nation-to-nation-relationships/">issued a Memorandum</a> on Tribal Consultation and Strengthening the Nation-to-Nation Relationships on Jan. 26. This policy statement, which builds on and expands similar declarations from Presidents Clinton and Obama, has been <a href="https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/biden-reaffirms-tribal-sovereignty">well received in Indian Country</a>. </p>
<p>If Haaland is confirmed, Biden’s memo will require her to submit a detailed implementation plan and progress reports to the Office of Management and Budget. Tribal consultations are already <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-announces-series-tribal-consultations-recognition-importance-nation-nation">planned</a>. Policy experts expect that overall, Haaland will work to restore tribal lands, address climate change – which is significantly affecting Indigenous people – and safeguard natural and cultural resources. The <a href="https://joebiden.com/tribalnations/">Biden-Harris Plan for Tribal Nations</a> outlines this agenda.</p>
<h2>Indigenous issues are American issues</h2>
<p>I believe that as secretary of the interior, Haaland will focus on issues that are important to all Americans, not just Indigenous people. Recent surveys show that a majority of Americans think the federal government should do more to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-government-should-do-more-on-climate/">combat climate change and protect the environment</a>. “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/27/deb-haaland-interview-interior-secretary-native-americans#">I’ll be fierce for all of us, for our planet, and all of our protected land</a>,” Haaland said when her nomination was announced.</p>
<p>For Native Americans, seeing people who look like us and are from where we come from in some of the highest elected and appointed offices in the U.S. demonstrates inclusion. Indian Country finally has a seat at the table. The gravity of this position is not lost on Haaland, and I expect that she will make a difference for all Americans.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Traci Morris (Chickasaw Nation) is an individual Indian member of the National Congress of the American Indian. She is President of the Phoenix Indian Center Board of Directors and a member of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society's Board of Directors.</span></em></p>If confirmed, US Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico would be the first Native American to run the agency that interacts with tribal nations. But her agenda extends far beyond Indian Country.Traci Morris, Executive Director, American Indian Policy Institute, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1362252020-06-01T12:47:29Z2020-06-01T12:47:29ZNative American tribes’ pandemic response is hamstrung by many inequities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338403/original/file-20200528-51516-1ma4eta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C0%2C3000%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Johnnie Henry, president of the Navajo Nation's Church Rock chapter house community center, hauls drinking water to neighbors in Gallup, N.M., May 7, 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Barricaded-Town/695595b76b84464a9d5197a7407ed442/2/0">AP Photo/Morgan Lee</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The SARS-CoV-2 virus is novel, but pandemic threats to indigenous peoples are anything but new. Diseases like measles, smallpox and the Spanish flu have decimated Native American communities <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.12.004">ever since the arrival of the first European colonizers</a>. </p>
<p>Now COVID-19 is having similarly devastating impacts in Indian country. Some reservations are reporting infection rates <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/how-covid-19-is-impacting-indigenous-peoples-in-the-u-s">many times higher</a> than those observed in the general U.S. population.</p>
<p>We are social scientists who study many aspects of <a href="http://environmentaljustice.colostate.edu/">environmental justice</a>, including <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=p3jvlSAAAAAJ&hl=en">the politics of food access and food sovereignty</a>, the impacts of <a href="https://www.libarts.colostate.edu/people/samalin/">extractive resource industries</a> like uranium and fossil fuels, and how Indigenous communities <a href="https://ethnicstudies.colostate.edu/people/schneidl/">navigate relationships</a> with state and federal governments to maintain their traditional practices. As we see it, Native American communities face structural and historical obstacles related to settler colonial legacies that make it hard for them to counter the pandemic, even by drawing on innovative indigenous survival strategies. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_TUc0iDWzfE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Housing shortages, health disparities and other inequities make Native Americans especially vulnerable to COVID-19.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>History reverberates on Native lands</h2>
<p>Native communities in North America have been disrupted and displaced for centuries. Many face long-standing food and water <a href="http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/DocServer/2017-PWNA-NPRA-Food-Insecurity-Project-Grow.pdf?docID=7106">inequities</a> that are further complicated by this pandemic. </p>
<p>On the Navajo reservation, which covers more than 27,000 square miles in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, 76% of households already <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235390130_High_levels_of_household_food_insecurity_on_the_Navajo_Nation">have trouble affording enough healthy food</a>, and the nearest grocery store is often hours away. COVID-related restrictions have further curtailed access to food supplies. </p>
<p>Clean water for basic sanitary measures like hand-washing is also scarce. Native Americans are <a href="http://uswateralliance.org/sites/uswateralliance.org/files/Closing%20the%20Water%20Access%20Gap%20in%20the%20United%20States_DIGITAL.pdf">19 times more likely</a> to lack indoor plumbing than whites in the U.S. Nearly one-third of Navajo households <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coronavirus-hits-indian-country-hard-exposing-infrastructure-disparities-n1186976">lack access to running water</a>. </p>
<p>Many <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6915e3.htm">health issues</a> that can increase COVID-19 mortality rates occur at high levels among Native Americans. These <a href="http://www.ncai.org/news/articles/2020/03/18/the-national-congress-of-american-indians-calls-for-more-attention-to-covid-19-impacts-to-indian-country">underlying</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30893-X">preexisting</a> conditions – things like hypertension, diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease – are <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6913e2.htm">linked to diet</a> and stem from <a href="https://www.oupress.com/books/15107980/indigenous-food-sovereignty-in-the-united-sta">disruption and replacement</a> of Indigenous food systems.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338406/original/file-20200528-51527-1y3vqf0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338406/original/file-20200528-51527-1y3vqf0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338406/original/file-20200528-51527-1y3vqf0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338406/original/file-20200528-51527-1y3vqf0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338406/original/file-20200528-51527-1y3vqf0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338406/original/file-20200528-51527-1y3vqf0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338406/original/file-20200528-51527-1y3vqf0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338406/original/file-20200528-51527-1y3vqf0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) experience higher rates of chronic diseases than non-Hispanic Whites.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=e0bf79ae663e4c098308abdaab8c24fd">Urban Indian Health Institute; data from CDC</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828688372/overcrowding-makes-it-hard-for-native-americans-to-socially-distance">housing shortages</a> on reservations and <a href="https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/homeless-vulnerable-and-no-option-for-self-isolation--DGU3-v-FEWmTxrdIH73OA">homelessness</a> in urban Native communities make social distancing to reduce COVID-19 transmission impossible. </p>
<h2>High exposure rates</h2>
<p>These factors have clear health impacts. On the Navajo reservation, for instance, through May 27, 2020, <a href="https://www.navajo-nsn.gov/News%20Releases/OPVP/2020/May/FOR%20IMMEDIATE%20RELEASE%20-%201620%20recoveries_102%20new%20cases%20of%20COVID-19_and%20one%20more%20death%20reported.pdf">4,944 people</a> out of a population of 173,000 had tested positive for COVID-19, and 159 had died. </p>
<p>This infection rate per capita exceeds those in hot spots such as <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandrasternlicht/2020/05/19/navajo-nation-has-most-coronavirus-infections-per-capita-in-us-beating-new-york-new-jersey/#11a4fac08b10">New York and New Jersey</a>. Importantly, however, it may also reflect a much <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/04/19/navajo-nation-has-higher/">more proactive approach to testing</a> on reservations than in many other jurisdictions.</p>
<p>The fact that elderly people are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 could worsen the pandemic’s effects in Indian Country. Elders are the <a href="https://ais.washington.edu/research/publications/spirits-our-whaling-ancestors">keepers of traditional knowledge, tribal languages and culture</a> – legacies whose loss already threatens the persistence of indigenous communities. </p>
<p>Elders also play key roles in preserving traditional plant and medicine knowledge. In the absence of COVID-19 interventions from Western medicine, many elders have been called on to perform healing practices, which increases their exposure risk. </p>
<h2>Little help from federal and state governments</h2>
<p>Many tribal members rely on the federal government’s <a href="https://www.ihs.gov/">Indian Health Service</a> for health care. But <a href="https://theconversation.com/tribal-leaders-face-great-need-and-dont-have-enough-resources-to-respond-to-the-coronavirus-pandemic-134372">lack of capacity</a> at the agency has hampered its response. Budget shortfalls, <a href="https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/report-grossly-inaccurate-data-used-to-divvy-up-relief-funds-for-tribes-9qkkHmeXj0uhRC42mXYqCA">inaccurate data</a>, the challenges of providing <a href="https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/coronavirus-risk-is-compounded-by-the-rural-DC-rMTUzzE6WDGee8jbENQ">rural health care</a> and ongoing personnel shortages in IHS clinics are compounded by staff being <a href="https://navajotimes.com/reznews/dikos-ntsaaigii-doodaa-nation-musters-defense-against-covid-19/">pulled away</a> to fight the virus in large cities. </p>
<p>And while many states have raised frustrations with the Trump administration’s unwillingness to distribute protective supplies from the <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/3/21206170/us-emergency-stockpile-jared-kushner-almost-empty-coronavirus-medical-supplies-ventilators">dwindling national stockpile</a>, IHS and tribal health care authorities <a href="https://www.azpm.org/p/home-articles-news/2020/3/17/167874-bill-calls-for-more-tribal-community-access-to-federal-stockpile-of-medical-supplies/">never had access</a> to the stockpile at all. </p>
<p>Although the federal government has begun <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/05/22/hhs-announces-500-million-distribution-to-tribal-hospitals-clinics-and-urban-health-centers.html">distributing relief funds</a> to IHS agencies, there have been serious problems with the accompanying supplies. The Navajo Nation has received <a href="https://www.indianz.com/News/2020/05/22/propublica-former-trump-aide-provided-fa.asp">faulty masks</a>, and a Seattle Native health center asked for tests but <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/native-american-health-center-asked-covid-19-supplies-they-got-n1200246">received body bags instead</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, federally imposed limits on tribal sovereignty have obstructed tribal governments’ efforts to deal with the pandemic themselves. Federal and state governments are <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/makah-tribe-fights-coronavirus-with-self-reliance-and-extreme-isolation/">challenging tribes’ jurisdictional authority</a> to <a href="https://www.azfamily.com/news/mayor-of-page-accused-of-racist-social-media-comment-toward-navajo-nation-president/article_e2e6efd6-8db4-11ea-a8a2-7f6976d702f6.html">close borders to tourists</a> who may carry the virus. South Dakota’s governor has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/14/sioux-coronavirus-roadblocks-south-dakota-governor">threatened legal action</a> against two tribes who set up checkpoints to monitor incoming traffic on their reservations. </p>
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<h2>Environmental injustices on Native land</h2>
<p>Energy development and resource extraction have had <a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/898-all-our-relations">disproportionate impacts</a> on tribes for many years. Today, many Native American leaders worry that ongoing energy production – <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/covid-19-essential-workers-in-the-states.aspx">an “essential” activity under federal guidelines</a> will bring outsiders into close contact with reservation communities, worsening COVID risks.</p>
<p>The owners of the Keystone XL oil pipeline have announced that they intend to continue construction, which will bring an influx of workers along the proposed route through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota and Fort Belknap Indian community in Montana have filed for a <a href="https://www.narf.org/keystone-xl/">temporary restraining order</a>, and a key permit for the pipeline was <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/16/headlines/us_judge_revokes_crucial_permit_for_keystone_xl_pipeline">revoked in April 2020</a>, but work continues at the U.S.-Canada border.</p>
<p>Construction is accelerating on the <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2020/03/17/border-patrol-waives-laws-border-wall-construction-southern-arizona/5063618002/">southern border wall</a>, which bisects the <a href="http://www.tonation-nsn.gov/">Tohono O’odham reservation</a> in Arizona and Mexico. The Trump administration has <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/border-coronavirus-military-immigration/">increased patrols at the border</a>, despite the tribe’s concern that the patrols’ presence is <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/06/coronavirus-cbp-160-cases-covid-19-officers-agents/2958736001/">spreading coronavirus</a> on the reservation. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338410/original/file-20200528-51516-7dpo59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338410/original/file-20200528-51516-7dpo59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338410/original/file-20200528-51516-7dpo59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338410/original/file-20200528-51516-7dpo59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338410/original/file-20200528-51516-7dpo59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338410/original/file-20200528-51516-7dpo59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338410/original/file-20200528-51516-7dpo59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338410/original/file-20200528-51516-7dpo59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wild-caught salmon is an iconic Alaska product, but some local leaders want to restrict salmon fishing in 2020 to minimize coronavirus transmission.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://vilda.alaska.edu/digital/collection/cdmg41/id/1020/">Alaska State Archives</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And in Bristol Bay, Alaska, a salmon fishing season that brings in thousands of temporary workers is <a href="https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/it-s-hard-when-you-love-something-xlS49l2N20KZjqumwfzZfQ">set to open in June</a> because the federal government has also deemed commercial fishing “<a href="https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/CISA-Guidance-on-Essential-Critical-Infrastructure-Workers-1-20-508c.pdf">essential critical infrastructure</a>.” Many local Native villages depend on the fishery for income, but have nonetheless pleaded with state regulators to <a href="https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/urgent-calls-to-close-the-massive-bristol-bay-fishery-8lYsGkUeDUyCBW7FMwpSfA?fbclid=IwAR1710u4rQnriq_MgH2ueQxOFtfGiGiH8I2ZdJRCZS9f28Zl-JNkPLpnzZo">cancel the season</a>. The regional hospital has just four beds for possible COVID-19 patients.</p>
<h2>Bold action in Native communities</h2>
<p>Native communities are taking decisive action to reduce the spread of COVID-19. They’re imposing aggressive <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/us/coronavirus-navajo-nation.html">quarantine</a> measures like lockdowns, curfews and border closures. Communities are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/18/covidcoronavirus-native-american-lummi-nation-trailblazing-steps">ramping up health care capacity</a> and elder support services, and banishing nontribal members who <a href="https://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/oglala-sioux-council-banishes-non-member-with-covid-19-from-reservation/article_60b665c3-9d1b-5d48-a576-51774e4fb41a.html">violate travel restrictions</a>.</p>
<p>Other strategies include helping hunters <a href="https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/ammo-fuel-for-hunters-to-feed-others-Ki3zK6du-ky-UogoB9-aNQ">provide traditional foods</a> to their communities, <a href="https://ndncollective.org/indigenizing-and-decolonizing-community-care-in-response-to-covid-19/">mobilizing to support tribal health care workers</a>, and <a href="https://www.ehn.org/coronavirus-native-americans-2645923635.html">linking the pandemic and the climate crisis</a>. Looking ahead to a post-COVID future, we believe one priority should be attending to <a href="http://www.beacon.org/As-Long-as-Grass-Grows-P1445.aspx">front-line environmental justice struggles</a> that center tribes’ sovereignty to act on their own behalf at all times, not just during national crises.</p>
<p>[<em>Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-facts">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136225/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Malin receives or has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Colorado Water Center, the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, the Rural Sociological Society, and CSU School of Global Environmental Sustainability.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Sbicca and Lindsey Schneider do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many Native American tribes are reporting high COVID-19 infection rates. State and federal agencies are impeding tribes’ efforts to handle the pandemic themselves.Lindsey Schneider, Assistant Professor of Native American Studies, Colorado State UniversityJoshua Sbicca, Associate Professor of Sociology, Colorado State UniversityStephanie Malin, Associate Professor of Sociology; Co-Founder and Steering Committee Member, Center for Environmental Justice at CSU, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1054772018-11-15T11:45:50Z2018-11-15T11:45:50ZWhy covering the environment is one of the most dangerous beats in journalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245467/original/file-20181114-194506-1s9jt5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Journalists who cover illegal operations like logging at this site in northern Sagaing division, Myanmar, can face threats and violence. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Myanmar-Lost-Forests/f751a16e1fb345cfbce7eec0655f7f97/40/0">AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-45935823">murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi by Saudi agents</a> to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/07/media/trump-cnn-press-conference/index.html">President Trump’s clashes with the White House press corps</a>, attacks on reporters are in the news. This problem extends far beyond the politics beat, and world leaders aren’t the only threats.</p>
<p>At Michigan State University’s <a href="https://knightcenter.jrn.msu.edu/">Knight Center for Environmental Journalism</a>, we train students and professional journalists to report on what we view as the world’s most important beat. One hard fact is that those who cover it are at heightened risk of murder, arrest, assault, threats, self-exile, lawsuits and harassment. </p>
<p>In a <a href="http://knightcenter.jrn.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/AEJMC-In-the-Crosshairs-as-presented.pdf">recent study</a>, I explored this problem through in-depth interviews with journalists on five continents, including impacts on their mental health and careers. I found that some of them were driven away from journalism by these experiences, while others became even more committed to their missions.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yN8lQfWJsJQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Journalist Saul Elbein describes how in developing countries, covering the environment can be tantamount to investigating organized crime.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>In the cross-hairs</h2>
<p>Covering the environment is one of the most hazardous beats in journalism. According to one estimate, 40 reporters around the world died between 2005 and September 2016 because of their environmental reporting – <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/one-of-the-most-dangerous-beats-in-journalism-revealed">more than were killed covering the U.S. war in Afghanistan</a>.</p>
<p>Environmental controversies often involve influential business and economic interests, political battles, criminal activities, anti-government insurgents or corruption. Other factors include ambiguous distinctions between “journalist” and “activist” in many countries, as well as struggles over indigenous rights to land and natural resources. </p>
<p>In both wealthy and developing countries, journalists covering these issues find themselves in the cross-hairs. Most survive, but many undergo severe trauma, with profound effects on their careers.</p>
<p>As one example, in 2013 Rodney Sieh, an independent journalist in Liberia, disclosed a former agriculture minister’s involvement in a corrupt scheme that misused funds earmarked to fight the parasitic, infectious Guinea worm disease. Sieh was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-45607713">sentenced to 5,000 years in prison</a> and fined US$1.6 million for defamation. He served three months in Liberia’s most notorious prison before an international outcry pressured the government into releasing him.</p>
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<p>In the same year, Canadian reporter Miles Howe was assigned to cover protests by the Elsipotog First Nation in New Brunswick against hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. Howe worked for an independent online news organization that sought to spotlight unreported and underreported stories. </p>
<p>“Many times I was the only accredited journalist witnessing rather violent arrests, third-trimester pregnant women being locked up, guys tackled to the ground,” he recalls. Howe was <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/av4g7b/the-many-arrests-of-new-brunswick-journalist-miles-howe">arrested multiple times</a>, and during one protest a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police pointed him out and shouted, “He’s with them!” His equipment was seized, and police searched his home. They also offered to pay him for providing information about upcoming “events” – in other words, spying on the protesters.</p>
<h2>Psychological impacts</h2>
<p>The relatively few studies that have examined attacks on reporters show that such treatment can have lingering impacts, including <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01296612.2017.1374630?journalCode=rmea20">post-traumatic stress disorder</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5140040/">depressive and substance use disorders</a>. While some journalists are able to cope and recover, others live in a state of fear of future incidents, or suffer survivor guilt if they escape and leave relatives and colleagues behind. </p>
<p>“Overall, journalists are a pretty resilient tribe,” Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the <a href="https://dartcenter.org/">Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma</a> at Columbia University, told me. “Their rates of PTSD and depression are about 13 to 15 percent, which is comparable to rates among first responders. Environmental or social justice reporters often have a higher-than-average sense of mission and purpose and a higher level of skill,” beyond that of some of their peers on other beats.</p>
<p>But this attitude can translate into reluctance to seek help. Most journalists I interviewed didn’t seek therapy, usually because no services were available or because of the profession’s machismo factor. Gowri Ananthan, a lecturer at the Institute of Mental Health in Sri Lanka, calls journalism “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01296612.2017.1379814?src=recsys&journalCode=rmea20">a profession in denial</a>,” even as some victims acknowledge the price they’ve paid. </p>
<p>For example, Miles Howe suffered serious psychological problems following his arrests. “What did it do to me? It made me upset, angry,” he says. Howe didn’t seek therapy until he left journalism more than two years later, but in hindsight regrets not acting sooner. </p>
<p>Others told me their experiences recommitted them to their missions as journalists. Rodney Sieh says his stint in prison “really elevated our work to an international level that we would never have had if I weren’t arrested. It made us stronger, bigger, better.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245472/original/file-20181114-194519-qrljvo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245472/original/file-20181114-194519-qrljvo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245472/original/file-20181114-194519-qrljvo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245472/original/file-20181114-194519-qrljvo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245472/original/file-20181114-194519-qrljvo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245472/original/file-20181114-194519-qrljvo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245472/original/file-20181114-194519-qrljvo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245472/original/file-20181114-194519-qrljvo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Global press freedom declined to its lowest point in 13 years in 2016 amid unprecedented threats to journalists and media outlets in major democracies and new moves by authoritarian states to control the media.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Indigenous rights versus professional ethics</h2>
<p>Environmental controversies often involve indigenous rights. In South America, for example, indigenous journalists and “ethno-communicators” are playing an increasingly vital role in uncovering <a href="https://cpj.org/blog/2018/10/how-brazils-ethno-communicators-are-helping-indige.php">vast exploitation of natural resources, forests and land</a>.</p>
<p>Despite professional codes calling for balanced, impartial coverage, some reporters can feel compelled to take sides on these stories. “We saw that clearly at Standing Rock,” says Tristan Ahtone, a board member of the <a href="https://www.naja.com/">Native American Journalists Association</a>, referring to protests on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota against the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-standing-rock-became-a-site-of-pilgrimage-70016">Dakota Access Pipeline</a>. </p>
<p>“NAJA had to put out ethical guidelines for journalists. We saw it mostly with young Native reporters who were happy to blow the ethical line,” Ahtone says. “A lot of it is having a different world view.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245475/original/file-20181114-194503-1ys873t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245475/original/file-20181114-194503-1ys873t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245475/original/file-20181114-194503-1ys873t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245475/original/file-20181114-194503-1ys873t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245475/original/file-20181114-194503-1ys873t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245475/original/file-20181114-194503-1ys873t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245475/original/file-20181114-194503-1ys873t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245475/original/file-20181114-194503-1ys873t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters march at Oceti Sakowin camp, where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, Dec. 4, 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Year-In-News-North-Dakota/3c0852e3c23d4328916357d5a99e57f5/23/0">AP Photo/David Goldman, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Better training and legal protection</h2>
<p>Many of these issues need further research. From a craft perspective, how do these experiences affect journalists’ approach to reporting? How do they deal with sources afterwards, especially if those people are also at risk? How do editors and news directors subsequently treat reporters in terms of assignments, story placement and salaries? </p>
<p>These findings also raise questions about how press rights groups can successfully protect and advocate for environmental reporters. In my view, more environmental journalists need the type of safety training that many war and foreign correspondents now receive. </p>
<p>Pollution and natural resource damage affect everyone, especially the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. The fact that journalists who report on these issues are so vulnerable is deeply disturbing. And their abusers often operate with impunity. </p>
<p>For example, there have been no convictions in the 2017 murder of Colombian radio journalist <a href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/UNESCO-Demands-Investigation-into-Murder-of-Efigenia-Vasquez-20171019-0001.html">Efigenia Vásquez Astudillo</a>, who was shot while covering an indigenous movement to take back ancestral land that had been converted to farms, resorts and sugar plantations. As the <a href="https://committeetoprotectjournalists.tumblr.com/post/130754527279/murder-is-the-ultimate-form-of-censorship-cpjs">Committee to Protect Journalists observes</a>, “Murder is the ultimate form of censorship.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105477/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Freedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Reporters who cover environment and natural resource issues are commonly threatened and harassed around the world. Some have been killed for coverage that threatens powerful interests.Eric Freedman, Professor of Journalism and Chair, Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/757412017-04-27T13:36:16Z2017-04-27T13:36:16ZNorway’s oil fund is a tarnished gold standard for sustainable investment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166970/original/file-20170427-15110-15gonw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=266%2C6%2C1407%2C889&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/time-to-look/29951666326/in/photolist-4UMDbf-oaBBh6-7Yhjxo-4U1Hy4-J868em-pk17LZ-bswxxX-L6kt6j-pk16Gz-5wSbnZ-5wSbsB-5wSbx6-3kJgRQ-9BSRrt-ov213-7p2My3-9dBbBp-9dBb1g-cuh7mU-6sweGG-x73m3Y-9dEgAu-9dEiDd-MCJ7U7-vZwswA-4UHpTr">Ted McGrath/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, Norway’s US$930 billion <a href="https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/">Government Pension Fund Global</a>, is seen as the <a href="http://www.futurepolicy.org/common-wealth/divestment/norway-government-pension-fund/">epitome of socially responsible finance</a>. But if this is the best the investment world can offer, it offers scant hope that sustainability can be achieved through the influence of investors. </p>
<p>The fund, which owes its size to profits from Norway’s oil and gas industry, has become a powerful player in global markets since getting <a href="https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/the-history/">its first injection of capital</a> in 1996. Despite its deep links to the fossil fuel industry, it has managed to foster a benign reputation thanks to a set of <a href="http://etikkradet.no/files/2017/04/Etikkraadet_Guidelines-_eng_2017_web.pdf">ethical guidelines</a> and its <a href="http://etikkradet.no/en/council-on-ethics/">Council on Ethics</a>. </p>
<p>The Council can recommend the fund sells stakes in companies that violate the guidelines – <a href="https://www.nbim.no/en/responsibility/exclusion-of-companies/">or can place companies on an observation list</a>. The Bank of Norway makes the final decisions. Companies – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/jun/07/supermarkets.asda">Walmart</a> <a href="https://www.nbim.no/en/responsibility/exclusion-of-companies/">among them</a> – can be excluded if they deal in products like tobacco or weapons, or if their conduct leads to things like environmental damage or human rights violations. <a href="http://www.swfinstitute.org/swf-article/52-coals-companies-to-be-excluded-from-norways-sovereign-wealth-fund-universe/">Exclusions</a> are made public, with a written explanation. </p>
<h2>Tolerance levels</h2>
<p>It is a thorough, but slow, process. It has also been criticised for being based on a so-called <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901109001671">“overlapping consensus” approach</a>. This means the Council might only assesses a case if, for example, a massive media reaction indicates the people of Norway find a company’s conduct intolerable.</p>
<p>In some ways, the ethics focus overshadows the day-to-day management of the fund by <a href="https://www.nbim.no/en/">Norges Bank Investment Management</a> (NBIM). NBIM is mandated to aim for the highest return possible through responsible investment management. The goal is broad diversification and long-term investments which are sustainable in economic, environmental and social terms.</p>
<p>In other words, the fund managers are supposed to be incorporating sustainability into decision-making in order to identify systemic risks and make investments accordingly. It does do so to a certain extent. NBIM has divested from more companies on its own initiative, <a href="https://www.nbim.no/en/transparency/reports/2016/responsible-investment-2016/">based on risk assessment</a>, than on advice from the Council on Ethics.</p>
<p>There is a clear and fundamental flaw here, however. The fund’s mandate, investment strategies and guidelines do not acknowledge that broad investment in equities in all markets is unwise when the large majority of companies are simply pursuing a “business as usual” track and ignoring those systemic risks.</p>
<h2>Radical shift</h2>
<p>Simply put, if the investment universe as a whole is headed towards a cliff of environmental, social and economic crises, then the only economically sustainable path for the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund is to use its financial muscle to shift the direction of the investment universe. Through its own investments, and through the example it sets, the fund could be a real game changer.</p>
<p>Instead, the fund illustrates a false dichotomy between the economy and ethics. Human rights, the environment and climate change are bundled together as the responsibility of the Council on Ethics. NBIM has the job of ensuring financial returns for the welfare of future generations of Norwegians.</p>
<p>But on the kind of long-term economic perspective the fund adopts, it is meaningless to hold back on being a wholehearted part of the shift towards sustainability. Working towards this, including staying <a href="http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries/planetary-boundaries/about-the-research/the-nine-planetary-boundaries.html">within planetary boundaries</a>, is a prerequisite for long-term return on investments.</p>
<h2>Setting boundaries</h2>
<p>Climate risk is the clearest example of how this model is failing. “Business as usual” carries the risk of investing in projects which become stranded if the world makes a decisive shift away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy in line with the goals of the <a href="http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php">Paris Agreement</a>. </p>
<p>There are several signs that this <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/67b20418-60cc-11e6-ae3f-77baadeb1c93">shift has started to happen</a>. For that reason alone, a focus on fossil fuel projects is a <a href="https://www.ceres.org/our-work/carbon-asset-risk">significant risk</a>. Capital needs to be channelled towards environmentally, socially and economically sustainable projects which <a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/">enable the world</a> to stave of crises and avoid the risk of societal breakdown, but in creating a gulf between ethics and economics, these crucial issues are ignored.</p>
<p>We can see the result of this flawed thinking in the fund’s involvement with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/03/north-dakota-access-oil-pipeline-protests-explainer">Dakota Access pipeline</a>, the controversial US project to transport oil from fracking sites. The fund has US$1.2 billion of investments in the pipeline companies. </p>
<p>Any project designed to move 470,000 barrels of oil a day would be deeply problematic from a climate perspective, but the pipeline also raises social and environmental issues, including <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/north-dakota-access-pipeline-protest-drinking-water-2016-10">risks to drinking water</a> for indigenous people. The Nordic Saami people have <a href="https://www.ipe.com/news/esg/norways-oil-fund-faces-pressure-from-nordic-indigenous-people-over-dakota/10018069.article">reacted strongly</a>, sparking Norwegian media interest. </p>
<p>The issue has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/17/sami-dakota-access-pipeline-norway-pension-fund-divest">perceived as one for the Council on Ethics</a>, rather than a matter of economics. The Council may or may not recommend a divestment, but that will only be clear several months down the line. In the meantime, practically all other Norwegian financial institutions have divested from the pipeline, including the country’s second largest <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/17/sami-dakota-access-pipeline-norway-pension-fund-divest">pension fund</a>. NBIM has not acted even though two of its three responsible investment focus areas are <a href="https://www.nbim.no/en/responsibility/risk-management/climate-change2/">climate change</a> and <a href="https://www.nbim.no/en/responsibility/risk-management/water-management/">water management</a>.</p>
<p>The problem may not lie primarily with NBIM. The fund managers listen to the Ministry of Finance, and ultimately the Norwegian parliament. NBIM has recently suggested that the fund should be allowed to invest in <a href="https://www.nbim.no/en/transparency/submissions-to-ministry/2016/investments-in-unlisted-infrastructure-in-the-government-pension-fund-global/">unlisted infrastructure</a>. If this were directed towards renewables projects, it would be an important step towards filling the investment gap in this sector, especially in Africa and Asia. </p>
<p>The Ministry of Finance has recommended that parliament rejects this proposal, despite the prospect of <a href="http://ieefa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Making-the-Case-for-Investment-in-Renewable-Energy-Infrastructure_February-2017.pdf">very strong returns</a>. It argues that the fund’s focus must be the economic security of future generations, and it <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-04-07/norway-sovereign-wealth-fund-misses-a-green-trick">“should not be used as a tool for foreign or climate policy”</a>. </p>
<p>However, the point is that this is not a question of placing ethics above economics. It is a simple matter of understanding that economic returns – like everything else in the long run – are dependent on stable living conditions on earth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beate Sjåfjell is the Project Coordinator of the research project Sustainable Market Actors for Responsible Trade (SMART) (smart.uio.no), which runs from 1 March 2016 to 29 February 2020. SMART receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 693642. </span></em></p>A false divide between ethics and economics has diluted the immense potential power of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund.Beate Sjåfjell, Professor, Department of Private Law, University of OsloLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/747322017-03-21T18:41:00Z2017-03-21T18:41:00ZWhy is water sacred to Native Americans?<p>The Lakota phrase “Mní wičhóni,” or “Water is life,” has become a new national protest anthem. </p>
<p>It was chanted by 5,000 marchers at the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/american-indians-to-march-on-white-house-in-rally-for-rights/2017/03/10/8b327e84-04e3-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html?utm_term=.af983e52c1a2">Native Nations March</a> in Washington, D.C. on March 10, and during hundreds of protests across the United States in the last year. “Mní wičhóni” became the anthem of the almost year-long struggle to stop the building of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-will-native-tribes-fight-the-dakota-access-pipeline-in-court-72839">Dakota Access Pipeline</a> under the Missouri River in North Dakota. </p>
<p>This chant mirrors the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDbSjkkHPGs">civil rights anthems</a> of the past, which emerged out of the African-American church. “Mní wičhóni” in the Lakota language also has spiritual meaning, which is rooted in a connection to nature. As a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-makes-a-mountain-hill-or-prairie-a-sacred-place-for-native-americans-73169">Native American scholar</a> of environment and religion, I understand what makes the relationship between Native people and the natural world unique. </p>
<p>For Native Americans, water does not only sustain life – it is sacred.</p>
<h2>Water and the American West</h2>
<p>The Great Plains of North America, home to the Lakota, the Blackfeet and other tribes, is a dry, arid place. The U.S. government spends billions of dollars to control and retain water in this “<a href="http://www.lib.msu.edu/branches/map/US/800-c-reg4-D-1823-400/">Great American desert</a>,” as it was described in the early 19th century.</p>
<p>Geologist <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060955861/down-the-great-unknown">John Wesley Powell</a>, an early director of the U.S. Geological Survey, pointed out in an important <a href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70039240">1878 government study</a> that the defining characteristic of the Great Plains and the West was its lack of water. He attempted to promote land ownership that was based on watersheds, instead of dividing land into the rectangular lots still in use today. </p>
<p>Powell also recommended that America adopt a new type of land development – one that worked with nature, so everyone had access to water.</p>
<p>The U.S. government, however, ignored Powell’s ideas. Writing on this issue later, author <a href="https://wallacestegner.org/bio.html">Wallace Stegner</a>, who was passionate about the West, <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/7374/american_west_as_living_space">commented</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[W]hat do you do about aridity….You may deny it for a while. Then you must either adapt to it or try to engineer it out of existence.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Lakota, the Blackfeet and the other tribes understood how to live with nature. They knew it was best to live within the restrictions of the limited water supply of the Great Plains. </p>
<h2>Water as sacred place</h2>
<p>For thousands of years, Native American tribes across the <a href="http://www.oupress.com/ECommerce/Book/Detail/272/common%20and%20contested%20ground">Great Plains</a> developed their own methods of living with the natural world and its limited water supply. They learned both through observation and experiment, arguably a process quite similar to what we might call science today. They also learned from their religious ideas, passed on from generation to generation in the form of stories.</p>
<p>I learned from my grandparents, both members of the Blackfeet tribe in Montana, about the sacredness of water. They shared that the Blackfeet believed in three separate realms of existence – the Earth, sky and water. The Blackfeet believed that humans, or “Niitsitapi,” and Earth beings, or “Ksahkomitapi,” lived in one realm; sky beings, or “Spomitapi,” lived in another realm; and underwater beings, or “Soyiitapi,” lived in yet another realm. The Blackfeet viewed all three worlds as sacred because within them lived the divine.</p>
<p>The water world, in particular, was held in special regard. The Blackfeet believed that in addition to the divine beings, about which they learned from <a href="http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Invisible-Reality,677467.aspx">their stories,</a> there were divine animals, such as the beaver. The divine beaver, who could talk to humans, taught the Blackfeet their most important religious ceremony. The Blackfeet needed this ceremony to reaffirm their relationships with the three separate realms of reality.</p>
<p>The Soyiitapi, divine water beings, also instructed the Blackfeet to protect their home, the water world. The Blackfeet could not kill or eat anything living in water; they also could not disturb or pollute water.</p>
<p>The Blackfeet viewed water as a distinct place – a sacred place. It was the home of divine beings and divine animals who taught the Blackfeet religious rituals and moral restrictions on human behavior. It can, in fact, be compared to Mount Sinai of the <a href="https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Exodus-Chapter-1/">Old Testament</a>, which was viewed as “holy ground” and where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments.</p>
<h2>Water as life</h2>
<p>Native American tribes on the Great Plains knew something else about the relationship between themselves, the beaver and water. They learned through observation that beavers helped create an ecological oasis within a dry and arid landscape. </p>
<p>As Canadian anthropologist R. Grace Morgan hypothesized in her dissertation “<a href="https://era.library.ualberta.ca/files/df65vb64j#.WMxDHW_yvX4">Beaver Ecology/Beaver Mythology</a>,” the Blackfeet sanctified the beaver because they understood the natural science and ecology of beaver behavior. </p>
<p>Morgan believed that the Blackfeet did not harm the beaver because <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/leave-it-to-beavers-leave-it-to-beavers/8836/">beavers built dams</a> on creeks and rivers. Such dams could produce enough of a diversion to create a pond of fresh clean water that allowed an oasis of plant life to grow and wildlife to flourish.</p>
<p>Beaver ponds provided the Blackfeet with water for daily life. The ponds also attracted animals, which meant the Blackfeet did not have to travel long distances to hunt. The Blackfeet did not need to travel for plants used for medicine or food, as well. </p>
<p>Beaver ponds were a win-win for all concerned in “the Great American desert” that <a href="https://theconversation.com/give-beavers-permanent-residence-wed-be-dam-stupid-not-to-55256">modern ecologists and conservationists</a> are beginning to study only now.</p>
<p>For the Blackfeet, Lakota and other tribes of the Great Plains, water was “life.” They understood what it meant to live in a dry arid place, which they expressed through their religion and within their ecological knowledge.</p>
<h2>Rights of Mother Earth</h2>
<p>Indigenous people from around the world share these beliefs about the sacredness of water. </p>
<p>The government of New Zealand recently recognized the ancestral connection of the Maori people to their water. On March 15, the government passed the “Te Awa Tupua <a href="http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2016/0129/latest/DLM6830851.html?src=qs">Whanganui River Claims Settlement</a> Bill,” which provides “personhood” status to the Whanganui River, one of the largest rivers on the North Island of New Zealand. This river has come to be recognized as having “all the rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of a legal person” – something the Maori believed all along. </p>
<p>Many other countries have come to view the natural world and water from a similar perspective. In Bolivia, for example, the government passed laws in 2010 and 2012 for the “<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41268-016-0001-0">Law of the Rights of Mother Earth</a>,” which were motivated by the belief that nature has legal rights. The <a href="http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Ecuador/english08.html">Ecuadorian constitution</a> in 2008 recognized the rights of “Nature, or Pacha Mama,” with “respect for its existence,” which included water.</p>
<p>The United States does not have such laws. This is why the Standing Rock Lakota have been demanding for almost a year a right to clean water – free from the threat of potential environmental harm and to protect its sacredness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74732/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosalyn R. LaPier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For the Blackfeet, Lakota and other Native American people, water does more than sustain life – it’s the place of the divine.Rosalyn R. LaPier, Research Associate of Women's Studies, Environmental Studies and Native American Religion, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/734242017-03-01T02:21:58Z2017-03-01T02:21:58ZDonald Trump and Andrew Jackson: More in common than just populism<p>At President Donald Trump’s request, a portrait of former President Andrew Jackson <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316115-trump-hangs-portrait-of-andrew-jackson-in-oval-office">now hangs</a> in the Oval Office. Commentators have cast Trump’s populist appeal and inaugural address as “Jacksonian,” while others have tried to emphasize their major <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/andrew-jackson-donald-trump-populist-president-history-214705">differences</a>. <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/andrew-jackson-donald-trump-populist-president-history-214705">One writer</a> lauded Jackson as “the president who, more than any other, secured the future of democracy in America.”</p>
<p>However, these comparisons overlook experiences of marginalized people while defining history in terms of the ideologies of progress and American exceptionalism.</p>
<p>Jackson’s intolerant attitudes and harsh treatment of African-American and Native American peoples have not gone without mention. They are indeed inescapable. As a scholar who has written about <a href="http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/Books/bid2436.htm">Native American history</a> and <a href="http://unmpress.com/books.php?ID=20000000005880&Page=book">literature</a>, I am aware of just how often the perspectives of native people are neglected in conventional historical discourse.</p>
<p>The criticisms Trump has directed against <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/donald-trumps-long-history-of-clashes-with-native-americans/2016/07/25/80ea91ca-3d77-11e6-80bc-d06711fd2125_story.html?utm_term=.04e8f8a4c021">Indian casinos in the 1990s</a>, along with his insult of calling Senator Elizabeth Warren <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/whats-behind-trumps-pocahontas-attack-warren">“Pocahontas,”</a> casts his veneration of Jackson in a particularly disturbing light.</p>
<h2>Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears</h2>
<p>Jackson was a staunch supporter of slavery and policies that forcibly removed Indians from their lands. The passage of the 1830 <a href="http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3545">Indian Removal Act</a> was aimed at isolating native peoples to prevent conflict over territory and allow increased settlement. </p>
<p>The solution, originally conceived by Thomas Jefferson, was to empower the government to evict native peoples living east of the Mississippi River from their lands. Those subjected to removal would be moved <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3437t.html">“beyond the white settlements”</a> to distant reservations in the West, known at the time as “Indian territory.” It was a form of segregation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=658&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=658&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=658&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">R. Ridgway, engraving, c.1859, Muscogee Creek Chief William Weatherford surrenders to Andrew Jackson after the 1814 Battle of Horseshoe Bend. As a result, Jackson forced the Creek to cede over 20 million acres of land in Alabama and Georgia, including almost two million acres claimed by Cherokee Nation, allies who had fought in support of Jackson’s forces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1832, the Supreme Court struck down Georgia laws aimed at depriving the Cherokee people of their rights and property in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/31/515/case.html">Worchester v. Georgia</a>. The court affirmed a degree of native political sovereignty and annulled state jurisdiction over native lands. It was the final case of the so-called Marshall trilogy, named for Chief Justice John Marshall – the author of the majority decisions – and established major precedents of federal Indian law.</p>
<p>The immediate effect of the decision was to grant protections to the Cherokee Nation, and by extension to other tribes. It could have prevented forced removals, but Jackson was reportedly indignant at the result. According to the famed journalist Horace Greeley, Jackson was said to have <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/antebellum/history2.html">responded</a>, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”</p>
<p>Whether Jackson spoke those words has been contested by historians ever since. But his strong support for removal policy and subsequent refusal to enforce the court’s decision made his position clear. The response was a stern rebuke of the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, the doctrine of the separation of powers, the rule of law and ultimately the Constitution.</p>
<p>The result was the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears">Trail of Tears</a>, in which Cherokee and other native peoples of the Southeast were forced at gunpoint to march 1,200 miles to “Indian territory.” Thousands of Cherokee died during the passage, while many who survived the trek lost their homes and most of their property. Ironically, much of the land on which the Cherokee and other removed tribes were settled was opened to homesteading and became the state of Oklahoma some 60 years later.</p>
<p>Yet, the violent manner by which removal was carried out had been ruled illegal and unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Worchester case.</p>
<h2>New assault on native rights?</h2>
<p>The new administration is showing similar malice toward the legal status and rights of native peoples secured in American law. For example, <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/02/dakota-access-pipeline-standing-rock-trump">Trump recently lifted</a> President Obama’s injunction halting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Last week’s eviction of pipeline opponents from Sacred Stone Camp, led by the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, under threats of arrest has led to renewed uncertainty about native rights.</p>
<p>Statements by Trump’s advisers and government officials calling for the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tribes-insight-idUSKBN13U1B1">privatization of native lands</a> guaranteed by treaties to seize valuable natural resources have only heightened these concerns.</p>
<p>This rhetoric echos policies that oppressed native people in the past. These include <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=50">allotment</a>, extending from 1887 to the 1930s, which eliminated communal ownership and led to the taking of millions of acres of native land. This was followed by termination and relocation of the 1950s, aimed at eliminating the legal status of native people while sending individuals from reservations to urban areas, further depriving native peoples of their lands, liberty and culture.</p>
<p>Native treaties are unequivocally assured in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi">Article 6, the Supremacy Clause, of the U.S. Constitution</a>. It states: “all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land…”</p>
<p>Tribal leaders negotiated treaties in good faith to reserve what amounts to a <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/06/17/interactive_map_loss_of_indian_land.html">fraction of their original lands</a>, with all attendant rights. Privatizing tribal lands would be a violation of these treaties. </p>
<p>The casual rejection of these covenants heighten the insecurity among native people evoked by Trump. His esteem for Jackson and their shared attitudes toward their legal rights and status should give us pause. That journalists and historians continue to offer positive views of Jackson’s presidency in light of this legacy underscores how the suffering of native people continues to be ignored.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Billy J. Stratton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Comparisons often ignore the troubling history of how Jackson treated Native Americans. An expert on Native American history draws parallels to the new administration.Billy J. Stratton, Professor of contemporary American literature and culture; Native American studies, University of DenverLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/727092017-02-17T02:01:31Z2017-02-17T02:01:31ZTrump’s moves on the Dakota Access Pipeline portend more clashes with states<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157032/original/image-20170215-27402-m2qar8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trump and California Governor Jerry Brown have already had their run-ins. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/neontommy/8028178642/in/photolist-deqvP9-drgyT8-9nbNsv-9nbNrz-caGfJ7-atbyUW-8Knjav-8Qu4Z4-bxVJaL-dpfuA5-6sRVSM-8KqnKj-chmUAm-chmUoY-chmUtd-k4Az4F-anSphg-9i8JM9-anVbJW-9i8JFW-nFXQ6y-deqvJd-deqvSs-k4AADp-drgBva-drgFf9-drgNSG-drgfBE-drgds3-dngZMr-npKQeW-8zj3PL-9i8JHb-anVbFw-drg2Nh-k4A346-drgCMb-gKsRZy-oC3wwp-9eu3ae-gmbvr9-8KqnNN-8KqnGE-bLQpP8-8Qt5LG-4NfLDB-a6K7Rt-oBdYb-oBeoa-fk222">cornstalker/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the Obama administration, the Army Corps of Engineers (COE) slowed the regulatory review process of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) to accommodate the cultural and environmental concerns of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. In the first weeks of the Trump administration, however, the COE reversed its stance and approved the DAPL to move forward.</p>
<p>While there are many lessons and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-will-native-tribes-fight-the-dakota-access-pipeline-in-court-72839">legal issues</a> involved with the DAPL controversy, the case also raises questions of domestic sovereignty. By instructing the Army Corp of Engineers to forego an environmental review and approve the easement needed to complete the pipeline, we believe the Trump administration has shown disregard for the tribe as a sovereign body. </p>
<p>As scholars who have over 40 years of combined experience working with and researching state and local governments, we see this stance having implications beyond this one pipeline. In addition to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_sovereignty_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Indian_reservations.gif">Native American tribes</a>, the 50 states have independent and limited authority to govern that is separate from and parallel to the federal government’s authority. </p>
<p>Yet in the first few weeks of his administration, we’ve seen Trump display a new kind of federalism that does not seriously recognize the sovereignty of other domestic government entities.</p>
<p>For example, Trump threatened to “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/24/trump-threatens-to-send-in-the-feds-to-address-chicago-carnage/?utm_term=.fe0cdf75789d">send in the Feds</a>” to take over crime control in Chicago and <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/02/06/trump-threatens-to-cut-off-federal-funding-to-out-of-control-california/">cut funding from California</a> over the state’s plan to shield undocumented immigrants. </p>
<p>These moves reveal a hasty president unbound by the needs, authorities and rights of other people and governments. Trump appears to be satisfied only by obedience. </p>
<h2>Sanctuary City showdowns?</h2>
<p>Completion of the <a href="http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/wium/files/styles/x_large/public/201503/pipeline-full-map.jpg">1,172-mile DAPL</a> requires an easement to allow the company building the pipeline to run pipe under Lake Oahe. After hearing the concerns of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, the Army’s then-Assistant Secretary for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy last year <a href="https://www.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/459011.pdf">announced the need</a> for an environmental study that sufficiently analyzed alternative locations and the tribe’s water and fishing needs. Tellingly, Darcy found it necessary to respect “our government-to-government relationship” between the federal government and the tribe. </p>
<p>Then in a dramatic shift on Jan. 24, Trump issued an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/24/presidential-memorandum-regarding-construction-dakota-access-pipeline">executive order</a> telling the Army Corps to quickly <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/24/presidential-memorandum-regarding-construction-dakota-access-pipeline">reconsider Darcy’s decision</a>. Shortly thereafter, Acting Assistant Army Secretary Douglas Lamont <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-dakota-access-oil-pipeline-20170207-story.html">canceled</a> further environmental studies and allowed the project to proceed.</p>
<p>Although the controversy over the DAPL involves a variety of laws and jurisdictional concerns, the driver for litigation is the extent to which the United States recognizes the tribe’s sovereignty and the value of governing at a localized level. The tribe has asked for serious consideration of the impacts this project could have on culturally significant resources. Darcy’s Dec. 4 decision recognized that the legitimacy of the regulatory process included providing an opportunity for the tribes to voice their values and that those values could be best understood in a localized context. Trump’s reversal illustrates his lack of regard for such a process.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157183/original/image-20170216-9509-4ygbff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157183/original/image-20170216-9509-4ygbff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157183/original/image-20170216-9509-4ygbff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157183/original/image-20170216-9509-4ygbff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157183/original/image-20170216-9509-4ygbff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157183/original/image-20170216-9509-4ygbff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157183/original/image-20170216-9509-4ygbff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157183/original/image-20170216-9509-4ygbff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, left, and City Attorney Dennis Herrera during a news conference to explain why the state sued President Donald Trump to challenge the constitutionality of an executive order that cuts funding from immigrant-protecting ‘sanctuary cities.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Already, we’ve seen this pattern in dealing with states and cities as well. California, in particular, is likely to test Trump’s tolerance for domestic state sovereignty when it comes to environmental and social issues. </p>
<p>For starters, <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB54">“California Values Act” (SB 54)</a> would essentially turn the state and its over 4,000 political subdivisions into “Sanctuary Cities” and prohibit the use of state and local funds to support federal immigration investigations.</p>
<p>On Jan. 25, 2017, Trump signed an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/25/presidential-executive-order-enhancing-public-safety-interior-united">executive order condemning sanctuary cities</a>, stating: “These jurisdictions have caused immeasurable harm to the American people and to the very fabric of our Republic.” Trump later demonized California as <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-california-idUSKBN15M01V">“out of control”</a> and threatened to <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Trump-calls-California-out-of-control-in-10910183.php">cut federal funding</a> if California did not allocate resources to assist federal immigration investigations. </p>
<p>Like his demand that Mexico pay for “the wall,” Trump hasn’t shown an appreciation for the limits of presidential powers in sovereign affairs or the benefits that can stem from citizens having a close relationship with their government.</p>
<p>Additional critical issues are looming in California that will test the extent to which the Trump administration is willing to exert federal rights. For example, the state is seeking a waiver to set stringent <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-california-environment-20170202-story.html">fuel economy standards</a> and enact policies that will provide <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-congress-california-retirement-20170209-story.html">retirement security for low-income workers</a>, a plan the GOP-led Congress opposes. </p>
<h2>Separation of powers</h2>
<p>Trump’s decisions early in his presidency illustrate clear patterns in his approach to leadership and direction on domestic policy. And based on his statements and actions thus far, we can expect Trump to make similar arguments as California and several states and cities prepare to fight for their sovereign powers on this and potentially other issues. San Francisco, for example, has claimed the executive order concerning sanctuary cities unconstitutionally intrudes on sovereignty in violation of the 10th Amendment of the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm#amdt_10_(1791)">Constitution</a>.</p>
<p>This apparent disrespect for state and tribal sovereignty could catalyze conflicts among domestic authorities. State and local governments will likely refuse to fall in line and give up the powers reserved to states and local governments to please Trump. Thus, the size of the sandbox in which Trump administration will operate is fast becoming a battleground. </p>
<p>Dissent by tribes and state and local governments is understandable and justifiable. When sovereignty is questioned and when power is centralized domestically in a hegemonic and authoritative rule, civil society loses the benefits of responsive, representative, cooperative and localized government. Citizens are also disconnected from their government and political life. It takes an attentive public and a good president to recognize this consequence as bad.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72709/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new federalism? Trump’s decision to green-light the Dakota Access Pipeline and early battles with states show a disregard for the sovereignty of domestic government bodies.Jonathan Rosenbloom, Professor of Law, Drake UniversityKeith Hirokawa, Associate Professor of Law, Albany Law SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/731692017-02-16T20:32:25Z2017-02-16T20:32:25ZWhat makes a mountain, hill or prairie a ‘sacred’ place for Native Americans?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157179/original/image-20170216-9506-yb99hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman holds Pope Francis' head during his meeting with representatives of indigenous peoples at the Vatican on Feb. 15, 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For several months Native American protesters and others have been opposing the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The plans for construction pass through sacred land for the Native American tribe, Standing Rock Sioux.</p>
<p>But, within days of taking office, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum supporting the construction of the pipeline. Recently a U.S. federal judge denied a request by tribes to halt construction on the final link of the project.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, however, the protesters appeared to have received support from none other than Pope Francis, a long-time defender of indigenous people’s rights. The pope <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-north-dakota-pipeline-pope-idUSKBN15U1VA">said</a> indigenous cultures have a right to defend “their ancestral relationship to the Earth.” <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-north-dakota-pipeline-pope-idUSKBN15U1VA">He added</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Do not allow those that destroy the Earth, which destroy the environment and the ecological balance, and which end up destroying the wisdom of peoples.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a Native American scholar of environmental history and religious studies, I am often asked what Native American leaders mean when they say that certain landscapes are “sacred places” or “sacred sites.” </p>
<p>What makes a mountain, hill or prairie a “sacred” place?</p>
<h2>Meaning of sacred spaces</h2>
<p>I learned from my grandparents about the sacred areas within <a href="http://blackfeetnation.com/">Blackfeet tribal territory</a> in Montana and Alberta, which is not far from Lakota tribal territory in the Dakotas. </p>
<p>My grandparents said that sacred areas are places set aside from human presence. They identified two overarching types of sacred place: those set aside for the divine, such as a dwelling place, and those set aside for human remembrance, such as a burial or battle site.</p>
<p>In my <a href="http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Invisible-Reality,677467.aspx">forthcoming book “Invisible Reality,”</a> I contemplate those stories that my grandparents shared about Blackfeet religious concepts and the interconnectedness of the supernatural and natural realms. </p>
<p>My grandparents’ stories revealed that the Blackfeet believe in a universe where supernatural beings exist within the same time and space as humans and our natural world. The deities could simultaneously exist in both as visible and invisible reality. That is, they could live unseen, but known, within a physical place visible to humans.</p>
<p>One such place for the Blackfeet is Nínaiistáko, or Chief Mountain, in Glacier National Park. This mountain is the home of Ksiistsikomm, or Thunder, a primordial deity. My grandparents spoke of how this mountain is a liminal space, a place between two realms. </p>
<p>Blackfeet tribal citizens can go near this sacred place to perceive the divine, but they cannot go onto the mountain because it is the home of a deity. Elders of the Blackfeet tribe believe that human activity, or changing the physical landscape in these places, disrupts the lives of deities. They view this as sacrilegious and a desecration. </p>
<h2>A living text</h2>
<p>Sacred places, however, are not always set aside from humanity’s use. Some sacred places are meant for constant human interaction.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.nmai.si.edu/main/2013/08/in-memoriam-keith-h-basso-19402013.html">Anthropologist Keith Basso</a> argued in his seminal work <a href="http://www.unmpress.com/books.php?ID=770">“Wisdom Sits in Places”</a> that one purpose of sacred places was to perfect the human mind. The Western Apache elders with whom Basso worked told him that when someone repeated the names and stories of their sacred places, they were understood as “repeating the speech of our ancestors.”</p>
<p>For these Apache elders, places were not just names and stories – their landscape itself was a living sacred text. As these elders traveled from place to place speaking the names and stories of their sacred text, they told Basso that their minds became more “resilient,” more “smooth” and able to withstand adversity. </p>
<h2>The sacredness of the pipeline site</h2>
<p>At different national and international venues, Lakota leader Dave Archambault Jr. has stated that the Lakota view the area near the potential construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline as both a “sacred place” and a “burial site,” or as both a place set aside from human presence and a place of human reverence.</p>
<p>Lakota scholar Vine Deloria Jr. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_World_We_Used_to_Live_in.html?id=S6F7MKRoFS4C">described the “sacred stones”</a> in North Dakota in his book “The World We Used to Live In” as having the ability of “forewarning of events to come.”</p>
<p>Deloria described how Lakota religious leaders went to these stones in the early morning to read their messages. Deloria shared the experiences of an Episcopal minister from 1919.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A rock of this kind was formerly on Medicine Hill near Cannon Ball Sub-station…. Old Indians came to me… and said that the lightning would strike someone in camp that day, for a picture (wowapi) on this holy rock indicated such an event…. And the lightning did strike a tent in camp and nearly killed a woman…. I have known several similar things, equally foretelling events to come, I can not account for it.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_World_We_Used_to_Live_in.html?id=S6F7MKRoFS4C">Deloria explained</a> that it was “birds, directed by the spirit of the place, [that] do the actual sketching of the pictures.” The Lakota named this area Ínyanwakagapi for the large stones that served as oracles for their people. The Americans renamed it Cannonball.</p>
<h2>Not just Dakota</h2>
<p>Historians, anthropologists and religious thinkers <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Where_the_Lightning_Strikes.html?id=UpIMJdc29qoC">continue to learn and write</a> about Native American religious ideas of place. In so doing, they seek to analyze complex religious concepts of transformation and transcendence that these places evoke.</p>
<p>However, despite their contributions to the academic interpretation of religion, these understandings do not often translate into protection of Native American places for their religious significance. As <a href="https://www.aclu.org/bio/stephen-pevar">legal scholar Stephen Pevar</a> <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-rights-of-indians-and-tribes-9780199795352?cc=us&lang=en&">tells us,</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“there is no federal statue that expressly protects Indian sacred sites…. in fact, the federal government knowingly desecrates sites.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the past year we have seen protests over the potential <a href="https://www.hawaii.edu/offices/bor/regular/testimony/201504161130/4-14-2015_Toledo_TMT.pdf">desecration of sacred places</a> at Mauna Kea in Hawaii (over the construction of another telescope on a sacred volcano), <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/03/30/oak-flat-deal-violates-apache-rights-mining-best-practices">Oak Flats in Arizona</a> (over a potential copper mine on sacred land) and now at <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37834334">Standing Rock in North Dakota</a>. </p>
<h2>Lack of understanding of sacredness</h2>
<p><a href="http://hds.harvard.edu/people/william-graham">William Graham, a former dean</a> of the Harvard Divinity School, <a href="http://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/articles/summerautumn2012/why-study-religion-twenty-first-century">wrote that</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Religion… will long continue to be a critical factor in individual, social, and political life around the world, and we need to understand it.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The intimate connection between landscape and religion is at the center of Native American societies. It is the reason that thousands of Native Americans from across the United States and indigenous peoples from around the world have traveled to the windswept prairies of North Dakota.</p>
<p>But, despite our 200-plus years of contact, the United States has yet to begin to understand the uniqueness of Native American religions and ties to the land. And until this happens, there will continue to be conflicts over religious ideas of land and landscape, and what makes a place sacred.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article first published on Nov. 2, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73169/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosalyn R. LaPier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pope Francis appears to have defended Native American protests on the North Dakota pipeline issue. Indigenous cultures have a right to defend ‘their ancestral relationship to the Earth,’ he said.Rosalyn R. LaPier, Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, Environmental Studies and Native American Religion, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/728392017-02-15T02:03:12Z2017-02-15T02:03:12ZHow will native tribes fight the Dakota Access Pipeline in court?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156847/original/image-20170214-19605-1axc8mp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">After the Army Corps of Engineers approved an easement for the North Dakota Pipeline, two tribes requested – unsuccessfully – to halt construction while their lawsuit over the project is resolved.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Susan Walsh</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Feb. 8 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reversed course and issued an <a href="http://www.nwo.usace.army.mil/Media/News-Releases/Article/1077134/corps-grants-easement-to-dakota-access-llc/">easement</a> allowing the installation of the Dakota Access Pipeline under Lake Oahe in North Dakota. That decision followed a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/24/presidential-memorandum-regarding-construction-dakota-access-pipeline">presidential memorandum</a> indicating that construction and operation of the pipeline would be in the “national interest,” and set the stage for a final showdown over the pipeline’s fate.</p>
<p>In response, two Indian tribes, the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux, filed new motions to halt the pipeline’s construction and operation. After an initial hearing on those motions, the federal judge on the case <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/02/13/federal-judge-rejects-request-to-block-dakota-access-pipeline/">allowed</a> construction to proceed but will be considering the tribes’ claims before oil will pass through the pipeline under Lake Oahe. That means, unlike the voices of thousands who joined the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in protest against the pipeline, the next chapter of this fight will be argued by a few lawyers in the pin drop silence of a federal courtroom. </p>
<p>Although the details of those arguments will be complex, as a legal scholar focused on Native American law I see the case addressing an essential question at the heart of our legal system: namely, how does federal law and judicial process protect the fundamental values and structure of the Constitution?</p>
<p>The central issues in the case are now whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ approval of the pipeline and easement illegally interferes with the tribes’ religious beliefs and whether the corps adequately considered the tribes’ water and other treaty rights before issuing that approval.</p>
<h2>Religious Freedom Restoration Act</h2>
<p>According to the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, oil running through the pipeline would represent the fulfillment of a generations-old prophesy, passed down through the oral traditions of tribal members, that warned of a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/10/opinion/sunday/how-to-stop-a-black-snake.html">Black Snake</a> coming to defile the sacred waters necessary to maintain the tribes’ ceremonies. Beyond the environmental concerns often at the center of the pipeline protests, the tribe’s motion for an injunction squarely defines final authorization of the pipeline by the corps as an existential threat: destruction of the tribes’ religion and way of life.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156848/original/image-20170214-19589-dlqk30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156848/original/image-20170214-19589-dlqk30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156848/original/image-20170214-19589-dlqk30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156848/original/image-20170214-19589-dlqk30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156848/original/image-20170214-19589-dlqk30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156848/original/image-20170214-19589-dlqk30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156848/original/image-20170214-19589-dlqk30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156848/original/image-20170214-19589-dlqk30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the key legal questions in the North Dakota Access Pipeline case whether federal interests can supersede religious freedoms of native groups.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vpickering/31980278153/in/photolist-QHZhw6-RY9MuZ-QwpjXU-RC6a3x-RNThGc-QwpjVE-RoxkjA-RJBqEE-RLUWTt-RocwU9-RJBnNY-RuN8tw-QHZfCr-RZiHJt-QgR9Yy-Q9ptjz-RUnERh-Q9ptKe-RcstVR-RjEEnY-RxPbkn-QYVcps-RuN9j9-QgR9Cd-QgR9Pq-RZiHXK-RuN8ZG-RUgZFU-M163Kf-RJi37u-QgAdrA-RJi2K7-RoxjVE-QHZeGZ-QHZgA8-RoenEJ-Nd9kMH-RoemQC-QYEwL3-AMe3u9-RR2Yg5-RUgZLy-QFkegN-RR2YCh-NreMJc-RXQpsi-P7SVr8-QFke9U-Rocx5j-Q6CbBE">vpickering/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees the exercise of religion free from governmental interference. But the Supreme Court, in <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/485/439.html">Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protection Association</a>, in 1988 upheld the Forest Service’s approval of a road across an area on federal land sacred to local tribes even while recognizing the road could have devastating effects on their religion. </p>
<p>Then in 1993, Congress enacted the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/chapter-21B">Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)</a>, which requires that the government demonstrate a compelling interest and use the least restrictive means to achieve that interest if its actions will substantially burden religious practice. </p>
<p>In other words, even if approving the Dakota Access Pipeline served a compelling governmental interest, RFRA may require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to show that the pipeline easement under Lake Oahe would have the least impact on tribal religion. That approach would be consistent with the Supreme Court’s broad application of RFRA in a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf">2014 case</a> not involving tribal interests or federal lands and may pose a significant challenge to the corps, which <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/previously-proposed-route-dakota-access-pipeline-rejected/story?id=43274356">considered but rejected</a> a different route that did not pose the same threat to the tribes. </p>
<p>Both the corps and company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline <a href="https://daplpipelinefacts.com/safety/">argue</a> that the risk of spill from the pipeline is minimal and that the tribes failed to raise these religious concerns in a timely manner. In addition, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contends that, consistent with the Lyng case, governmental action on federal land should not be restricted because of religious concerns raised by local tribes. </p>
<p>Thus, resolution of the case will turn upon whether the court recognizes the legitimacy of the tribal religious concerns and broadly applies RFRA or, instead, chooses to prioritize federal authority over federal land to the detriment of those concerns. The parties will argue whether the religious freedom issues support an injunction on Feb. 27.</p>
<h2>Arbitrary or capricious decisions?</h2>
<p>In addition to their religious concerns, the Sioux tribes challenge the corps’ decisions based on the rights they reserved in treaties made with the federal government in <a href="http://ndstudies.gov/gr8/content/unit-iii-waves-development-1861-1920/lesson-4-alliances-and-conflicts/topic-2-sitting-bulls-people/section-3-treaties-fort-laramie-1851-1868">1851 and 1868</a>. </p>
<p>The Constitution <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi">recognizes</a> treaties as the “supreme law of the land” and, according to a 2016 analysis done by the solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior, both the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux <a href="https://solicitor.doi.gov/opinions/M-37038.pdf">retain</a> treaty-reserved water, hunting and fishing rights in Lake Oahe. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156849/original/image-20170214-19595-avkofw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156849/original/image-20170214-19595-avkofw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156849/original/image-20170214-19595-avkofw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156849/original/image-20170214-19595-avkofw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156849/original/image-20170214-19595-avkofw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156849/original/image-20170214-19595-avkofw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156849/original/image-20170214-19595-avkofw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156849/original/image-20170214-19595-avkofw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The pipeline company has argued that the risks to the water supply are minimal and that the tribes didn’t raise religious concerns earlier in the approval process.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/diversey/32009578684/in/photolist-QLzsxE-RRSTeD-RaZpCm-QiBASc-pktBZK-RMgXJK-PKBfWf-QD1oXF-RY9MuZ-RoxkjA-RPnyC5-RX1GAn-RJBqEE-QD1t5t-Rm4Hf7-RK31Lg-RSWwkz-RJBnNY-Rm4Hef-RHDMrk-RSWuPP-RG2LtB-RYSpJw-c6WkaU-RjYRDC-QEBznx-RY9DTY-QHJCRe-RHDMoK-RjQdCS-QEBzqZ-NreMJc-QEBzoV-RUzJZH-Ri5Cjo-J9ooe5-RoxjVE-Rb6CKb-PrRbr9-NrgFck-RTzXwJ-PwaBXD-M2KHMh-RG2L4i-RSWtNa-RG2KS6-RG2KMM-PDtJ5p-LJg7iu-QD1poa">diversey/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before <a href="https://turtletalk.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/dapl_exhibit-2.pdf">reversing</a> course in February, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers refused to issue the easement last year in order to further <a href="https://www.army.mil/article/179095/army_will_not_grant_easement_for_dakota_access_pipeline_crossing">understand</a> and <a href="https://turtletalk.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/dapl-eis-2017-00937.pdf">analyze</a> those treaty rights. </p>
<p>Importantly, federal <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/706">law</a> generally allows courts to set aside arbitrary or capricious agency decisions. In a Feb. 14 <a href="http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/Memo-ISO-SRSTs-Mtn-for-PSJ.pdf">filing</a>, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe asks the court to review the corps’ about-face under that standard and argues that the federal trust responsibility, <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/30/1/case.html">recognized</a> by the Supreme Court since the early 1800s, demands more than just a cursory review of tribal treaty rights.</p>
<p>The parties will be briefing the treaty rights issues into March, but the judge is keeping a close eye on Dakota Access’ progress in the meantime.</p>
<p>The ultimate fate of the pipeline will turn on how the courts recognize the rights asserted by the Sioux tribes, rights rooted in the Constitution’s values and structure – precisely the type of rights our rule of law and federal courts are meant to protect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monte Mills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>More than an easement: A scholar of Native American law lays out the legal arguments in the Dakota Access Pipeline and why they matter to all of us.Monte Mills, Assistant Professor of Law & Co-Director, Margery Hunter Brown Indian Law Clinic, University of MontanaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/720422017-02-01T16:02:46Z2017-02-01T16:02:46ZSure, pipelines are good for oil companies, but what about jobs related to preserving nature and culture?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155026/original/image-20170131-3259-v05ra1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 2002 pipeline spill in Cohasset, Minnesota which released 6,000 barrels of crude oil. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mpcaphotos/23150436385/in/photostream/">mpcaphotos/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On his fourth day as U.S. president, Donald Trump penned <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/24/trump-to-sign-orders-reviving-pipeline-projects-sources-say.html">executive orders</a> to advance construction of the <a href="http://www.sapiens.org/culture/native-american-activism-standing-rock/">Dakota Access Pipeline Project pipeline</a> and the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30103078">Keystone XL pipeline</a>. A week later, there were reports the new administration has ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/31/dakota-access-pipeline-army-corps/">grant an easement</a> that will allow completion of the disputed Dakota Access Pipeline to proceed. </p>
<p>The White House press secretary <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/24/trump-to-sign-executive-orders-on-keystone-xl-dakota-pipelines/">said completion of the controversial pipelines</a> would increase jobs and promote economic growth – an argument Trump’s <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/24/511411653/trumps-move-on-keystone-xl-dakota-access-outrages-activists">supporters echo</a>. </p>
<p>However, this viewpoint focuses on the profits that go to the oil and construction industries, while ignoring the price that will be paid by other sectors of America’s economy, including tourism and preservation of our cultural heritage – a point I’m quite aware of as an anthropologist focused on the American West. A more accurate reckoning of the economic benefits of pipelines needs to consider the negative impact of pipelines on other parts of our economy. </p>
<h2>The business of preservation</h2>
<p>The management of America’s heritage begins with a suite of important federal laws such as the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/history/local-law/nhpa1966.htm">National Historic Preservation Act</a> (NHPA) of 1966, which affirms that “the spirit and direction of the Nation are founded upon and reflected in its historic heritage.” The NHPA’s starting point is that patriotism, preservation and profits are not contrary goals, declaring that “the preservation of this irreplaceable heritage is in the public interest so that its vital legacy of cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, economic and energy benefits will be maintained and enriched for future generations of Americans.”</p>
<p>Preserving America’s past for its future is a monumental task. A National Park Service <a href="http://xoxyohh9fh753j91bj7hl15l.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/2014-Historic-Annual-Report_Web.pdf">report</a>, for example, found that just in 2014 16.5 million acres were surveyed for cultural resources across the United States. More than 137,000 properties were evaluated for their historical significance and added to state inventories, while more than 1,000 new sites were added to the National Register of Historic Places.</p>
<p>The industry that fulfills this trust responsibility is known as cultural resource management, which is made up of a small but highly skilled set of technicians in archaeology, architecture, engineering, geography, history and related fields. There <a href="http://www.culturalheritagepartners.com/cultural-resources-management-a-1-billion-industry/">are about</a> 1,300 CRM firms nationwide – nearly all of them small businesses – which employ some 10,000 people. These businesses in turn feed more work, such as equipment suppliers, IT and HR professionals, accountants and administrative support.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155030/original/image-20170131-3259-1e2gf8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155030/original/image-20170131-3259-1e2gf8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155030/original/image-20170131-3259-1e2gf8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155030/original/image-20170131-3259-1e2gf8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155030/original/image-20170131-3259-1e2gf8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155030/original/image-20170131-3259-1e2gf8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155030/original/image-20170131-3259-1e2gf8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155030/original/image-20170131-3259-1e2gf8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Opponents to the Keystone XL pipeline have opposed it over worries over spills and its contribution to greenhouse gases, but the projected path would also run across public lands and cross 265 archaeological sites and 132 historic structures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Nati Harnik</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 2014 NPS report also documented the role of historic preservation in the country’s economy. Between 1977 and 2014, under the Federal Historic Preservation Tax program, more than US$73 billion in private investment has been generated to rehabilitate commercial historic properties and nearly 140,000 low and moderate housing units were built in <a href="https://www.nps.gov/tps/tax-incentives/taxdocs/Affordable-Housing-Van-Allen.pdf">restored historic buildings</a>. Since 1978, an estimated 2.4 million jobs have been created through these projects focused on the preservation of America’s heritage.</p>
<p>The places that are protected have economic tendrils that reach far across the country through tourism. In 2015, for instance, more than <a href="https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/news/release.htm?id=1775">305 million people</a> visited national parks. These <a href="https://www.nps.gov/nature/customcf/NPS_Data_Visualization/NPS_VSE_2015_FINAL.pdf">tourists spent</a> nearly $16 billion on an array of local services – hotels, gas stations, restaurants – helping to sustain nearly 300,000 jobs. Tourists and travelers visit scores of other national, state and local parks, spending their money to enjoy nature and cultural sites.</p>
<h2>Cost of spills</h2>
<p>In announcing their support for expediting the pipelines, Trump’s allies also failed to acknowledge the negative impacts of environmental damage. </p>
<p>For example, the 2010 BP oil spill <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2010-06-25-1Aspill25_CV_N.htm">immediately impacted tourism</a>. Even five years later, tourists <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/04/20/400374744/5-years-after-bp-oil-spill-effects-linger-and-recovery-is-slow">were slow</a> to return to some spots along the Gulf Coast, and <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/bp-oil-spill-has-lasting-economic-toll-five-years-after-deepwater-horizon-explosion-1883832">economists argued</a> that BP’s $10 billion in payments did not fully account for the spill’s secondary effects. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155048/original/image-20170131-3259-1wvzbue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155048/original/image-20170131-3259-1wvzbue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155048/original/image-20170131-3259-1wvzbue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155048/original/image-20170131-3259-1wvzbue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155048/original/image-20170131-3259-1wvzbue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155048/original/image-20170131-3259-1wvzbue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155048/original/image-20170131-3259-1wvzbue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155048/original/image-20170131-3259-1wvzbue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Bureau of Land Management has leased land near Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, one of 20 World Heritage sites in the U.S., for oil and gas drilling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/79666107@N00/4102442310/in/photolist-7fw6aY-7exptF-7fw63m-ef6BG5-d6JCqu-ek7nLv-7bvzAR-6fJ2x3-c3PB8q-6vdieE-2GMwgv-HA8A8i-2GMxh6-9nJf4m-wgNLG-wgNFe-c3QEms-ftCNW-wgNRK-geX5LS-6TEDDm-c3QxrU-c3LUyu-4MKS9G-cdWrGf-geWzLV-KU2Ge-KTLvm-4MKStj-wgN8m-9nJfVo-rdGvA3-2GRRBS-wgPv7-u3GmL-5NBS9-4o1FPi-9nFfYK-geWAWx-HaQ6yN-6adeCE-aLRtKp-4MFFte-pVbCJ-aLPTev-c3Q2iL-wgNN5-aBnCzD-c3QGdd-rdCLDM">Chris M Morris/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These accidents can directly impact everyday Americans. As of last year, some <a href="http://www.mypanhandle.com/news/special-report-on-bp-oil-spill-and-claims-that-remain-unsettled">50,000 claims</a> were still sitting with BP. Transporting oil via pipelines is <a href="https://theconversation.com/despite-disasters-oil-by-rail-transport-is-getting-safer-38085">generally safer than rail, truck or barge</a>, yet pipeline spills do occur and cause financial problems. <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-oil-pipeline-leaks-20150522-story.html">According to the federal agency</a> the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, since 1995, accidents involving oil and petroleum pipelines have caused approximately $3 billion in property damage. The change to people’s sense of place and <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/enbridge-oil-spill-five-years-later-michigan-residents-struggle-move-2022591">the trauma</a> caused by oil spills are also a negative effect, though hard to enumerate. </p>
<p>In the end, we all are likely to pay as <a href="https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/910140NW.TXT?ZyActionD=ZyDocument&Client=EPA&Index=1981+Thru+1985&Docs=&Query=&Time=&EndTime=&SearchMethod=1&TocRestrict=n&Toc=&TocEntry=&QField=&QFieldYear=&QFieldMonth=&QFieldDay=&IntQFieldOp=0&ExtQFieldOp=0&XmlQuery=&File=D%3A%5Czyfiles%5CIndex%20Data%5C81thru85%5CTxt%5C00000022%5C910140NW.txt&User=ANONYMOUS&Password=anonymous&SortMethod=h%7C-&MaximumDocuments=1&FuzzyDegree=0&ImageQuality=r75g8/r75g8/x150y150g16/i425&Display=hpfr&DefSeekPage=x&SearchBack=ZyActionL&Back=ZyActionS&BackDesc=Results%20page&MaximumPages=1&ZyEntry=1&SeekPage=x&ZyPURL">tax dollars are used</a> in part for the Superfund program to clean up spills: <a href="https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0901841">for example</a>, a Texaco oil pipeline in California that has contaminated the soil and groundwater.</p>
<p>In other places, it’s not only a question of accidents but accepting the negative effects of extraction over the positive effects of preservation. The recent decision to <a href="http://krqe.com/2017/01/26/chaco-canyon-oil-rights-sell-for-3-million-despite-protests/">allow oil and gas drilling</a> around the Chaco Canyon National Historical Park in New Mexico – considered one of the best-preserved centers of Pueblo culture in the American Southwest – will likely destroy irreplaceable archaeological sites and could dissuade some tourists from visiting the World Heritage Site – a place <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list">deemed as important</a> as the Taj Mahal, Easter Island and Statue of Liberty.</p>
<h2>A different economic development</h2>
<p>The Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines in some measure threaten to undermine the possibilities of the heritage industry – particularly if the projects were to bypass standard environmental mitigation, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/opinion/selling-off-apache-holy-land.html?_r=0">happened recently</a> at Oak Flats in Arizona. <a href="https://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/documents/organization/221135.pdf">According to a State Department</a> report done under the Obama administration, the Keystone pipeline would disturb more than 15,000 acres, 10 percent of that public lands. The corridor would cross 265 archaeological sites and 132 historic structures – 44 of which are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The pipeline would also be a risk to more than 2,500 water wells, soils, wildlife and vegetation. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/documents/organization/221186.pdf">report</a> also calculated <a href="https://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/documents/organization/221186.pdf">the Keystone XL pipeline</a> would generate about 42,000 jobs indirectly and about 3,900 construction jobs if the project were done in one year – far fewer than the <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/27/news/economy/trump-keystone-jobs/index.html">28,000 Trump touted when signing the order</a>. Once the pipeline is operating, it would employ about 35 full-time and 15 temporary employees, according to the report. </p>
<p>In contrast, heritage provides a different kind of <a href="http://www.usicomos.org/knowledgeexchange/heritage-as-pillar-of-sustainable-development/">economic development</a>. Not only does it protect places that honor our past and living cultures, <a href="http://www.globalurban.org/GUDMag08Vol4Iss1/Rypkema.htm">but also</a> increases property values, protects natural resources needed for communities to thrive and grow, supports small businesses and provides sustainable long-term jobs in tourism and associated commercial ventures. </p>
<p>Trump’s apparent preference for the oil industry shouldn’t be surprising – after all, only last month Trump <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/05/trump-sells-his-stake-in-dakota-access-pipeline-developer.html">sold off his stake</a> in Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the Dakota Access Pipeline. But a president who professes to care so deeply about business should see the economic benefits of protecting heritage and preserving nature, too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chip Colwell has consulted for Anthropological Research, LLC, a firm that works with Native American tribes to comply with the NHPA and NEPA. </span></em></p>An anthropologist of the American West argues that protecting nature and our cultural heritage are good for business but few recognize how they are threatened by ‘jobs-creating’ oil pipelines.Chip Colwell, Lecturer on Anthropology, University of Colorado DenverLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/707822017-01-06T01:15:52Z2017-01-06T01:15:52ZFive reasons why the North Dakota pipeline fight will continue in 2017<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151790/original/image-20170104-18656-18p0baj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In December, protesters in Standing Rock, North Dakota scored a big victory against a pipeline builder, yet the underlying problems have not been addressed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/David Goldman</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In December 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) denied an easement that would have permitted the company Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) to complete one of the final segments of the 1,100-mile Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which seeks to connect the oil fields of North Dakota with terminals and refineries in Illinois.</p>
<p>The denial of ACE’s easement is undoubtedly a <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/12/09/standing-rock-tribe-defied-history-what-happens-next-anything-inevitable-166692">victory</a> for the Standing Rock Sioux. The tribe and its allies in the #NoDAPL movement opposed the pipeline over risks to water quality, the destruction of cultural heritage and the injustice of, <a href="https://therednation.org/2016/09/18/fighting-for-our-lives-nodapl-in-context/">once again</a>, having to make sacrifices for the economic gains of others. David Archambault II, chair of the tribe, <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/05/504420616/standing-rock-leader-asks-those-who-are-not-sioux-to-leave-pipeline-protest-area">thanked</a> those who had been gathering for months at the construction site, saying their “purpose had been served,” and that they may leave now.</p>
<p>But as we start a new year, many people are convinced that the need for resistance <a href="http://www.valleynewslive.com/content/news/DAPL-protesters-Its-not-over-so-why-should-we-go-home-404895325.html">has not ended</a> even after the tribe’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/the-historic-victory-at-standing-rock/509558/">monumental victory</a>. The Sacred Stone camp, a <a href="http://sacredstonecamp.org/about/">Spirit Camp</a> dedicated to stopping the pipeline, published the headline “<a href="http://sacredstonecamp.org/blog/2016/12/2/obama-administration-denies-final-easement-whats-next">DAPL Easement Suspended, but the Fight’s not Over</a>.”</p>
<p>As an indigenous scholar and activist, I agree that the water protectors’ underlying causes in this high-profile resistance have not been addressed – even if ETP truly halts all construction. Here are five developments people should consider as the incoming Trump administration takes power. </p>
<p><strong>1. Tribal consultation requirements need to be reformed.</strong></p>
<p>In its December memo, the ACE <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/dakota-pipeline-protests/army-corps-engineers-had-actually-recommended-dakota-access-pipeline-route-n692826">said</a> it did not violate its <a href="http://www.spk.usace.army.mil/Portals/12/documents/tribal_program/USACE%20Native%20American%20Policy%20brochure%202013.pdf">duty to consult tribes</a> in advance. Moreover, in ruling against the tribe, which had sought an injunction to halt construction, district judge James Boasberg <a href="http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/order-denying-PI.pdf">documented</a> the many efforts ACE made to reach out to the tribe as well as efforts of the pipeline builders to avoid damaging places of cultural and historical significance. </p>
<p>Yet nonetheless, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s territory was targeted for the pipeline instead of an <a href="http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-12-01/bismarck-residents-got-dakota-access-pipeline-moved-without-fight">area closer to Bismarck, North Dakota</a>, which speaks to the need for reform of tribal consultation policies. </p>
<p>In my personal review and interpretation of ACE’s specific <a href="http://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Tribal-Nations/">tribal consultation policy</a> and the related <a href="http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/136740.pdf">Executive Order 13175</a>, I believe agencies can fulfill the duty to consult with tribes without really giving them a fair opportunity for free, prior and informed consent. Some scholars argue that Section 106 policy of the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires impacts on cultural heritage to be considered, is <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-archaeological-review-behind-the-dakota-access-pipeline-went-wrong-67815">not designed</a> to fairly consider tribes’ interests. </p>
<p>Finally, when I reviewed Judge Boasberg’s opinion, what stands out to me are the multiple times when the tribe expressed objections and concerns to ACE and also ETP. Nevertheless, the agency and business interests kept pushing on. This is despite what should have been widely known about the significance of a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/448/371">1868 treaty area</a> for the tribe and its involvement in a 2012 <a href="http://www.indianz.com/News/2012/004715.asp">resolution</a> against future pipelines. </p>
<p>Some critics of the NoDAPL movement, including a <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/what-the-dakota-access-pipeline-is-really-about-1481071218">North Dakota congressional representative</a>, claim that opposing the pipeline offends the “rule of law.” Yet, for me, this criticism is unclear. </p>
<p>Morally speaking, I believe current tribal consultation policies lack strong enough support for the right to <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IPeoples/FreePriorandInformedConsent.pdf">free, prior and informed consent</a> and fail to protect sufficiently <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-understanding-native-american-religion-is-important-for-resolving-the-dakota-access-pipeline-crisis-68032">religious freedom</a> and cultural integrity. Legally speaking, the U.S. has a long way to make up for a range of unlawful actions, from <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/broken-promises-standing-rock-sioux-tribe-cites-history/story?id=43698346">breaking treaties</a> to <a href="http://www.narf.org/cases/cobell/">swindling indigenous trust assets</a>. In my view, basic respect for the Standing Rock’s treaty rights over the years would have made the current situation unlikely. Such respect would have also, speaking more speculatively, put many tribes in stronger positions, both economically and in terms of government capacity, to negotiate and track the actions of powerful corporations and U.S. agencies. </p>
<p>The ACE did issue <a href="http://www.usace.army.mil/Media/News-Releases/News-Release-Article-View/Article/1003593/statement-regarding-the-dakota-access-pipeline/">a statement</a> in November acknowledging historic “dispossessions of lands” as a factor being weighed, yet it is unclear whether <a href="https://theconversation.com/dakota-pipeline-americas-indigenous-people-are-still-fighting-a-centuries-old-racist-ideology-70175">this view</a> will ultimately be used to build improvements into current tribal consultation policies. </p>
<p><strong>2. Tribes everywhere are pressured by extractive industries.</strong></p>
<p>Pipelines, mining, drilling, refining and other extractive and industrial projects continue to try to enter tribal lands and waters around the country. </p>
<p>In the Pacific Northwest, the Lummi tribe recently worked to <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/tribes-prevail-kill-proposed-coal-terminal-at-cherry-point/">block plans</a> for a <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/united-in-fossil-fuel-fight-nw-tribes-inspire-nd-pipeline-foes/">coal-export port</a> that posed risks to their treaty-protected lands. In the Great Lakes, the Menominee Nation hosted a <a href="http://www.menominee-nsn.gov/GovernmentPages/Initiatives/Back40Mine/2016MenomineeRiverWaterWalk.jpg">Sacred Water Walk</a> to protect cultural sites and environmental quality from the <a href="http://www.aquilaresources.com/projects/back-forty-project/">“Back Forty” sulfide mine</a>. In the Southwest, the Navajo Nation is suing EPA over the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/16/politics/navajo-lawsuit-epa-animas-river/">Gold King mine’s spilling of contaminated water</a>, including lead and arsenic, into the Animas River. And I could go on to discuss <a href="http://www.ienearth.org/10-indigenous-and-environmental-struggles-you-can-support-in-2017/">countless</a> <a href="https://culanth.org/fieldsights/1022-deedsnotwords-a-national-day-of-water-protection-solidarity-north-of-the-medicine-line">more</a> <a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/first-nation-against-kinder-morgan-pipeline-rejects-standing-rock-style-protests-1.3180160">cases</a>. </p>
<p>For almost every tribe, this is not their first time dealing with extractive industries and hydropower projects. </p>
<p>The Navajo Nation was devastated by <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/10/473547227/for-the-navajo-nation-uranium-minings-deadly-legacy-lingers">uranium mining</a> in the middle part of the 20th century and still deals with uranium cleanup today. <a href="http://nwtreatytribes.org/state-watersheds-former-mining-roads-threaten-treaty-resources/">Historic mining</a> and <a href="http://www.historylink.org/File/10010">hydroelectric development</a> in Washington and Oregon affected treaty protected habitats of fish, plants and animals for the Lummi and many other tribes, which are still dealing with the <a href="http://treatyrightsatrisk.org/">ecological impacts today</a>. </p>
<p>Of course, the Standing Rock tribe itself <a href="https://therednation.org/2016/09/18/fighting-for-our-lives-nodapl-in-context/">endured losses of valuable lands due to a range of historical factors involving extraction and hydropower</a> including U.S. support of gold prospecting and the construction of the Lake Oahe Dam. </p>
<p><strong>3. The Trump administration is possibly exploring the privatization of some tribal lands.</strong></p>
<p>As the Trump administration comes into power, some tribes recall comments Trump himself made years ago <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/donald-trumps-long-history-of-clashes-with-native-americans/2016/07/25/80ea91ca-3d77-11e6-80bc-d06711fd2125_story.html?utm_term=.c1b261c89dac">in relation to gaming</a> which demonstrated both disrespect and ignorance. </p>
<p>Now recent stories suggest that the Trump administration – Trump has recently <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/05/trump-sells-his-stake-in-dakota-access-pipeline-developer.html">sold his stake</a> in ETP – would seek to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tribes-insight-idUSKBN13U1B1">explore policies that make it easier</a> for extraction to occur on tribal lands. </p>
<p>Reportedly, some of the options on the table involve privatization of tribal lands, echoing historic <a href="https://www.iltf.org/resources/land-tenure-history/allotment">allotment</a> and <a href="http://www.nrcprograms.org/site/PageServer?pagename=airc_hist_terminationpolicy">termination</a> policies that sounded good from a U.S. capitalist mindset but that ultimately <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Blood-Struggle/">devastated</a> many Native American economies through weakening tribal governmental sovereignty against the economic interests of U.S. settlers. </p>
<p><strong>4. It is unclear the extent to which the #NoDAPL movement educated anyone.</strong></p>
<p>The failure of U.S. public and private education and many media outlets to consistently cover indigenous histories and current issues means that potential allies of indigenous peoples do not have much background in relevant areas – everything from treaty rights to indigenous activism, to federal Indian law (and its limits), to indigenous religious and cultural values.</p>
<p>While many allies are able to send money or show up for what they understand as “direct action,” they do not know how they can advocate for indigenous peoples beyond the rare highly public issues. They do not, for example, seek to regularly pressure their political leaders to reform the U.S. government’s duty to consult with tribes before construction projects. Or they are not aware of indigenous peoples facing similar struggles to that of Standing Rock who are living right next door to them.</p>
<p><strong>5. US colonialism is not over.</strong></p>
<p>All these points I have just made are really just by-products of one key point: DAPL is not over because many people in the U.S. assume that it is acceptable to keep pushing tribes to make sacrifices for U.S.-endorsed business interests, whether these interests profit individuals or are portrayed as being in the national interest. </p>
<p>From an indigenous perspective, it is deeply frustrating to witness, generation after generation, a U.S. parasitism that continues to build the U.S. economy through infringing more and more on indigenous lands and waters, as we see from many ongoing energy and water projects detailed above. </p>
<p>Why is the underlying assumption always that indigenous peoples must sacrifice their cultures, economies and political self-determination for the sake of the aspirations of businesses and U.S. national interests? This question poses a significant problem for the ethics of DAPL even if it were absolutely certain that the pipeline is far safer, <a href="https://theconversation.com/victory-at-standing-rock-reflects-a-failure-of-us-energy-and-climate-policy-69881">in many respects</a>, than oil transport by rail. </p>
<p>It remains possible that the two-year-long Environmental Impact Assessment will not ultimately respect the involvement of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Or perhaps ETP will just keep building the pipeline and deal with the financial or legal consequences. </p>
<p>Regardless, tribes everywhere, this year and into the future, will face broken treaty rights, inadequate consultation, uphill battles against rich companies and federal and state agencies whose goals and procedures ultimately do not take to heart indigenous values, histories and sovereignty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70782/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyle Whyte does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A Native American scholar explains why so little has changed despite the apparent victory of protesters opposing the North Dakota Access Pipeline protest.Kyle Whyte, Timnick Chair in the Humanities / Associate Professor of Philosophy and Community Sustainability, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/701752016-12-09T17:34:16Z2016-12-09T17:34:16ZDakota pipeline: America’s indigenous people are still fighting a centuries-old racist ideology<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149414/original/image-20161209-31383-1og54td.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">John Gast's 'American Progress' (1872), depicting the US's westward expansion.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAmerican_progress.JPG">Jared Farmer/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The US Army recently issued an <a href="https://www.army.mil/article/179095/army_will_not_grant_easement_for_dakota_access_pipeline_crossing">official announcement</a> that it will not approve the proposed route of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a highly controversial project that would transport crude oil through indigenous people’s sacred lands and potentially contaminate their water supply. The army now says an <a href="http://www.popsci.com/there-will-be-nodapl-at-lake-oahe-what-comes-next">easement</a> (essentially a permit) for the pipeline’s construction will not be made until “further investigations” are completed. </p>
<p>Two of the companies involved, Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics, released <a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161204005090/en/">a statement</a> branding the decision a “purely political action” but this is still a significant win for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe who live in the area. Yet as Indigenous Environmental Network campaign organiser Dallas Goldtooth noted in a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/dallasgoldtooth/videos/10106017642313373/">video posted to Facebook</a> after the army’s announcement, this is not the end of the pipeline saga. </p>
<p>The ultimate decision may now simply be deferred to the incoming Trump administration; Trump himself <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-pipeline-idUSKBN13U15I">publicly supports the pipeline</a>, and until recently <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2838696-Trump-2016-Financial-Disclosure.html">held stock</a> in firms involved in its development.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, even if the fight isn’t over yet, the army’s statement may prove to be a <a href="https://theconversation.com/civil-liberties-of-indigenous-people-have-long-been-suppressed-at-standing-rock-69817">pivotal moment</a> in the history of indigenous-Euramerican relations. (For simplicity’s sake, I’ll use the phrase “indigenous peoples” to refer to those peoples of American Indian or Native Alaskan descent living in the US, and “Euramerican” to refer to both white American peoples of European descent and Europeans who live in the US.)</p>
<p>To truly appreciate the weight of this victory, it is worth illustrating a key concept in the history of the US’s dealings with its indigenous peoples. For hundreds of years now, it has repeatedly and almost without exception sacrificed their rights in the name of progress. This is underpinned by an especially pernicious ideology: “manifest destiny”.</p>
<h2>Marching west</h2>
<p>While the origins of the phrase are <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1837859">disputed</a>, the idea behind manifest destiny is relatively simple: white Americans have the God-given right and duty to spread their <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs">values</a> and way of life across the continent and beyond. As historian <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674948051">Reginald Horsman</a> noted, this phrase was merely the articulation of an ideology that had long driven the actions of European colonisers. </p>
<p>In the first year of his presidency, Andrew Jackson embedded this ideology into US government policy in the form of the <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=004/llsl004.db&recNum=458">Indian Removal Act</a> (1830), officially <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llhj&fileName=024/llhj024.db&recNum=24">endorsing the view</a> that indigenous peoples and civilisation where incompatible:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[The act] will place a dense and civilised population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters … [i]t will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites … retard the progress of decay … and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the government … to cast off their savage habits, and become an interesting, civilised, and Christian community.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although there was considerable resistance to this legislation, the Indian Removal Act artificially flattened the multiplicities of indigenous identities into one generic “Indian” stereotype, and normalised the idea that the defining characteristics of an “Indian” were anti-progress, anti-technology, and anti-civilisation. </p>
<p>A striking illustration of this is found in the photography of Edward Curtis, who at the turn of the 20th century was paid US$75,000 by financier JP Morgan to capture <a href="http://curtis.library.northwestern.edu/">tens of thousands of images and wax cylinder recordings</a> of Native American peoples and languages. His <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vEAfCVUHZi4C&pg=PR17&lpg=PR17&dq=%E2%80%9Cthe+mode+of+life+of+one+of+the+great+races+of+mankind%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=HMY6-IajGx&sig=fiyKn1eNfA-mDmljgpmJWDMDVso&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwid1MnegufQAhVDbhQKHV2mDhUQ6AEIMDAF">stated aim</a> was to preserve “the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind” before “the opportunity will be lost”. </p>
<p>Curtis’s works are widely remembered to this day, but what’s less well-known is that he used an early form of “photoshopping” to erase any signs of modernity or technology from his photographs. Perhaps the most famous example is his decision to <a href="https://beyondthebubble.stanford.edu/assessments/case-clock">remove an alarm clock</a> from a picture titled <a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002722455/">In a Piegan Lodge</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149404/original/image-20161209-31391-195flu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149404/original/image-20161209-31391-195flu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149404/original/image-20161209-31391-195flu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149404/original/image-20161209-31391-195flu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149404/original/image-20161209-31391-195flu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149404/original/image-20161209-31391-195flu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149404/original/image-20161209-31391-195flu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In a Piegan Lodge, with the inconvenient alarm clock included.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002722455/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With few exceptions, throughout the 19th and much of the 20th century the US government treated indigenous peoples as obstacles to progress. This agenda was advanced by assorted policies, from the <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=50">Dawes Act</a> (1887), which almost halved indigenous landholdings, to the introduction of <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/subjects/education/978-0-7006-0838-6.html">boarding schools</a> that punished indigenous children for speaking their language, to the <a href="http://www.unmpress.com/books.php?ID=12258054559417">termination policies</a> of the 1950s and 60s, which sought to destroy <a href="http://www.civilrights.org/indigenous/tribal-sovereignty/">tribal sovereignty</a> and assimilate indigenous people into “mainstream” US culture. </p>
<p>Although <a href="http://thenewpress.com/books/like-hurricane">resistance</a> to these policies was <a href="http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Indigenous-American-Women,671156.aspx">and remains</a> both significant and successful, recent research reveals that the idea still persists at the core of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00933104.2014.999849">many US schools’ history curriculums</a>, which exclude the <a href="http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/THRNAC.html">historical and contemporary contributions</a> of indigenous peoples (as well as other non-white Americans). As this history teaches it, Euramericans more or less own the US’s past.</p>
<h2>Onward</h2>
<p>Although follow-up investigations to the pipeline decision may rest on an environmental impact statement, the decision does more than protect the <a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/delind">rights of indigenous peoples</a> to a safe water supply. It also helps along the slow process of redressing the historical imbalance against indigenous peoples, who still face <a href="http://www.oupcanada.com/catalog/9780195430516.html">political</a> and <a href="http://www.indianmascots.com/fryberg--web-psychological_.pdf">cultural</a> oppression while their rights are sacrificed to a very particular type of “progress”. </p>
<p>This isn’t lost on those most involved in trying to stop the pipeline. <a href="http://standwithstandingrock.net/standing-rock-sioux-tribes-statement-u-s-army-corps-engineers-decision-not-grant-easement/">In a statement</a> released on December 4, Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault II wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Treaties are paramount law and must be respected, and we welcome dialogue on how to continue to honour that moving forward. We are not opposed to energy independence, economic development, or national security concerns but we must ensure that these decisions are made with the considerations of our indigenous peoples.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is a long way to go – but the bravery and endurance of thousands of protestors at Standing Rock is a significant shift to the meaning of progress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70175/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Farrington does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ideology of ‘manifest destiny’ has underpinned centuries of discriminatory legislation and violence against the US’s indigenous people.Tom Farrington, Research Associate in Management and Organisation, Heriot-Watt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/698172016-12-08T10:39:06Z2016-12-08T10:39:06ZCivil liberties of indigenous people have long been suppressed at Standing Rock<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149117/original/image-20161207-18073-1qxl8mr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tensions on the bridge.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Colin Samson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) at the Sioux Standing Rock reservation shows incredible unity against the exploitation of indigenous lands. For a long time, it looked like a foregone conclusion that the oil pipeline would be built close to the reservation. And yet, in a remarkable twist in the usual of story of fights against big energy companies, the US Army Corps of Engineers <a href="https://www.army.mil/article/179095/army_will_not_grant_easement_for_dakota_access_pipeline_crossing">denied permission</a> for the building of a crucial part of the project. </p>
<p>As scholars of indigenous rights who have visited the camps of the numerous opponents of DAPL in North Dakota, we are sceptical that this decision will hold. Having witnessed numerous abuses of the state against those trying to stop the pipeline, we are not confident that indigenous rights will be respected in the near future. </p>
<p>It took enormous efforts to get the US government to take notice of the environmental and land rights concerns at stake. Led by the native Lakota people, thousands of people calling themselves “water protectors” converged upon the Standing Rock reservation in recent months to resist the adulteration of lands that have deep <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-understanding-native-american-religion-is-important-for-resolving-the-dakota-access-pipeline-crisis-68032">historical</a> and <a href="http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/standing-rock-sioux-tribe-reasserts-dapl-destroyed-sacred-places/">sacred</a> meanings. The rivers and lakes under which the pipeline was planned to pass are vital water supplies and abundant in wildlife. </p>
<p>The 1,172 mile Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) would carry <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-energy-bakken-idUSBREA010ZI20140103">highly flammable oil</a> from the Bakken and Three Forks fields in North Dakota to a terminal in Illinois. The proposed route is a short distance from the Standing Rock reservation and would go underneath Lake Oahe which flows into the Missouri River. This project carries grave health and ecological risks, which were subject only <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11/04/pipelines-leak-expert-finds-government-downplayed-dapl-impact-tribe-and-water">to a light environmental review</a> conducted by the Army Corps of Engineers. As with <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0002932">oil pipelines on indigenous lands elsewhere</a>, contamination of not only water but the local ecology is a real possibility. Using official data on pipelines, the US Center for Biological Diversity <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/americas_dangerous_pipelines/">maintains that</a> “since 1986 pipeline accidents have spilled an average of 76,000 barrels per year or more than 3m gallons. This is equivalent to 200 barrels every day”. The centre also lists 500 fatalities in the US from pipeline accidents since 1986. </p>
<p>Yet the US Army’s decision on December 4 – based on environmental concerns – came as a big surprise. Until that time, the authorities policing Standing Rock showed little appreciation of the obligations of law, <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-us-commission-on-civil-rights-issues-statement-regarding-dakota-access-pipeline-300367759.html">including civil rights</a> and the freedom of expression – let alone the importance of the lands and waters to indigenous peoples.</p>
<h2>Violence and threats</h2>
<p>Resistance to the pipeline was met not only with official violence, but also suppression of opponents from voicing the environmental, land rights and indigenous self-determination conflicts at stake. This was evident when we visited the Oceti Sakowin camp with a delegation from the University of Wyoming in late November. </p>
<p>To stop people accessing the area where a stretch of the pipeline was to be built, police and National Guard units erected a crude barrier of concrete, razor wire and two burnt out trucks. Many protectors had attempted to remove the barriers, successfully towing off one of the burnt out trucks. As spokespeople for the protectors have said, the barricades were dangerous <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/21/standing-rock-protest-hundreds-clash-with-police-over-dakota-access-pipeline?CMP=share_btn_fb%5D">and prevented a lawful protest</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149121/original/image-20161207-18057-86a5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149121/original/image-20161207-18057-86a5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149121/original/image-20161207-18057-86a5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149121/original/image-20161207-18057-86a5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149121/original/image-20161207-18057-86a5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149121/original/image-20161207-18057-86a5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149121/original/image-20161207-18057-86a5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Blockade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Øyvind Ravna</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We witnessed police respond with tear gas, sound cannons, high velocity rubber bullets (which wounded one of our delegation) and, most menacingly, water cannons which doused protectors in subzero temperatures. Armoured vehicles, helicopters, and planes were clearly visible and several American Indian Veterans said they had seen snipers in the hills. A young woman named Sophia Wilansky went to hospital facing possible amputation of her arm. A <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/11/22/statement-father-sophia-wylansky-critically-injured-nodapl-action-166551">statement by her father</a> alleged it was caused by a concussion grenade lobbed by police at the bridge. She, along with about 400 others at the scene were unarmed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149118/original/image-20161207-18067-klntw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149118/original/image-20161207-18067-klntw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149118/original/image-20161207-18067-klntw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149118/original/image-20161207-18067-klntw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149118/original/image-20161207-18067-klntw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149118/original/image-20161207-18067-klntw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149118/original/image-20161207-18067-klntw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Use of water cannon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Øyvind Ravna</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As well as this violence by the state authorities, even more disturbing acts of suppression were used over that fateful weekend of November 20-21. A plane continuously circled the camps, flying at night without lights. <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/dakota-pipeline-protests/dakota-pipeline-protesters-questions-surveillance-jamming-linger-n675866">NBC reported</a> what many water protectors were saying; that the mysterious plane had been jamming signals so that witnesses could not disseminate what they saw, heard and felt. Several people mentioned in the NBC report as well as one of our party had their mobile phones rendered permanently unusable, possibly through interference of this kind.</p>
<p>The threat of arrest, the megaphones bellowing warnings that “munitions will be utilised to effect arrests” and the massed ranks of police and National Guard, all spread fear and discouraged the taking of photos because anyone considered a protester could be criminalised. Since our visit, even those who donate to the camps have been <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-north-dakota-pipeline-idUSKBN13O2FD">threatened with US$1,000 fines</a> by North Dakota officials.</p>
<h2>A long history</h2>
<p>These acts of suppression contradict the freedom of expression enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution (though it is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Retained-People-History-American-Bicentennial/dp/0195055632">not the first time</a> that Native Americans have had this freedom denied them specifically). Equally humiliating and not unrelated to civil rights is that the DAPL traverses tribal lands that have been continuously confiscated. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149220/original/image-20161208-31375-z1072o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149220/original/image-20161208-31375-z1072o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149220/original/image-20161208-31375-z1072o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149220/original/image-20161208-31375-z1072o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149220/original/image-20161208-31375-z1072o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149220/original/image-20161208-31375-z1072o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149220/original/image-20161208-31375-z1072o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chief Sitting Bull:</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Francis Barry – US Library of Congress/Wikipedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Great Sioux Reservation, which once stretched from the Missouri to the North Platte River in Wyoming, <a href="https://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=42&page=transcript">was marked out</a> for “absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” for the Lakota Sioux in a treaty with the US government back in 1868. It has since been reduced to four reservations in the Dakotas. Standing Rock Reservation, the home of great chief Sitting Bull, is one of these remnant spots that still belongs to the Lakota.</p>
<p>Land grabbing continued in the 1940s when the government dispossessed the Lakota and other tribes of their homes <a href="http://search.proquest.com/openview/fe98033ba5095444cd9c7cd90a4df6f4/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=105990">for a series of dam projects</a>. This led to the flooding of burial sites, which caused human remains to float to the surface and was the precursor to many other acts of <a href="http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/gpnat6&div=15&id=&page=">desecration of indigenous remains and sacred sites</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149099/original/image-20161207-18039-gtv7h9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149099/original/image-20161207-18039-gtv7h9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149099/original/image-20161207-18039-gtv7h9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149099/original/image-20161207-18039-gtv7h9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149099/original/image-20161207-18039-gtv7h9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149099/original/image-20161207-18039-gtv7h9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149099/original/image-20161207-18039-gtv7h9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protest van.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Uncertain future</h2>
<p>It had looked like DAPL would be approved via the same legal process (and with similar consequences) to these dam projects. However, the Army has called for a more lengthy environmental impact assessment and it has recommended that routes away from Standing Rock be explored. Whether any of this will happen is open to question.</p>
<p>The company that is building DAPL, Energy Transfer Partners, has sizeable investments from numerous important backers, <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/our_soon-to-be_president_has_stock_in_the_dakota_access_pipeline_20161125">including Donald Trump</a>. Trump himself assumes the presidency next month, and has a set of advisers already urging him to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tribes-insight-idUSKBN13U1B1">privatise oil-rich indigenous lands</a>. The company may still go ahead with constructing the pipeline under the lake, <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/11/10/dapl-ignores-2nd-army-corps-request-stop-construction-30-days-166426">having previously disregarded</a> an Army Corps of Engineers request to cease construction.</p>
<p>What’s been clear from the outset is a lack of meaningful consultation with indigenous people over the use of their ancestral lands. US security forces have been literally shielding Energy Transfer Partners and the state has discouraged those opposing it from expressing their views. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most egregious act of suppression is that the area where the pipeline is being built is made inaccessible for those who want to see what’s going on. The freedom of the press is severely restricted by this concealment. Keeping informed about the environmental assessment, if it goes ahead, could prove equally difficult. </p>
<p>Where is the justice? The US has committed itself to the <a href="https://www.cartercenter.org/news/documents/doc1369.html">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a> and <a href="http://www.state.gov/s/tribalconsultation/declaration/">the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>. Both require free, prior and informed consent for any intrusions on indigenous lands and stipulate that indigenous peoples shall own and control their traditional lands. This has not taken place at Standing Rock, and despite the army’s decision, the threats, the surveillance, the barricades and intimidation of those opposing the oil pipeline continues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69817/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colin Samson is also a visiting scholars in American Indian studies at the University of Wyoming</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Øyvind Ravna is also a visiting scholars in American Indian studies at the University of Wyoming</span></em></p>Standoff over North Dakota pipeline and Chief Sitting Bull’s Standing Rock is another broken promise made to Native Americans.Colin Samson, Professor of Sociology, Indigenous Peoples, University of EssexØyvind Ravna, Professor of Law, University of TromsøLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/695252016-12-08T02:12:07Z2016-12-08T02:12:07ZWill a weakened EPA set environmental justice back?<p>President-elect Donald Trump on Dec. 7 nominated Scott Pruitt to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us/politics/energy-firms-in-secretive-alliance-with-attorneys-general.html?smid=tw-share">close ties with the fossil fuel industry</a> and has been an ardent critic of the agency. As attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt has led the legal fight against many of the EPA’s signature regulations during the Obama administration, including the Clean Power Plan, the Waters of the United States rule and standards on toxic and interstate air pollution.</p>
<p>Given Pruitt’s hostility to EPA policy and President-elect Trump’s stated positions on climate change, <a href="https://www.greatagain.gov/policy/energy-independence.html">energy</a> and regulation in general, the direction of federal environmental policy is about to shift abruptly. </p>
<p>This change in policy also has potentially enormous ramifications for the EPA’s efforts to promote environmental justice. Over the past year, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/flints-water-crisis-is-a-blatant-example-of-environmental-injustice-53553">lead contamination of Flint, Michigan’s public water supply</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-native-american-pipeline-resistance-in-north-dakota-is-about-climate-justice-64714">protests in North Dakota over the Dakota Access oil pipeline</a> have provided stark reminders that environmental burdens are often borne disproportionately by low-income and minority communities.</p>
<p>During the Obama administration, the EPA has made achieving environmental justice a key priority. Earlier this fall, the agency released its long-term strategy, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/ej-2020-action-agenda-epas-environmental-justice-strategy">EJ 2020 Action Agenda</a>, to better deliver on its <a href="http://www.environmentmagazine.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/2016/March-April%202016/justice_full.html">historical promises</a> of reducing disparities in environmental protection. Although the agency still has much to <a href="http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/Statutory_Enforcement_Report2016.pdf">accomplish</a>, recent reforms, for example, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/guidance-considering-environmental-justice-during-development-action">to better incorporate equity into regulatory decision-making</a> and to improve agency <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-10/documents/strategic_plan.pdf">implementation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act</a>, are clear steps in the right direction. </p>
<p>With the EPA under new leadership, however, the durability of these reforms are now in doubt.</p>
<h2>Particularly vulnerable</h2>
<p>In the month since the presidential election, considerable attention has been given to what environmental policy might look like in the Trump administration. For good reason, much of the emphasis has been on <a href="http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/11/14/13582562/trump-gop-climate-environmental-policy">climate change</a>, given President-elect Trump’s own <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/265895292191248385?lang=en">climate denial</a> and the <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/23/503156456/trump-says-he-has-open-mind-on-climate-but-staff-pick-raises-questions">appointment of Myron Ebell</a>, a long-time critic of the EPA, to direct the agency’s transition team. </p>
<p>The EPA’s portfolio, of course, is much broader than climate change. With some recent regulatory initiatives, such as the Clean Power Plan, there are <a href="http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2016/12/7/13855470/donald-trump-epa-climate-regulations">significant limits</a> on what can be easily undone. However, little can prevent the new administration from changing or even eliminating discretionary, voluntary EPA initiatives. </p>
<p>This is why recent environmental justice efforts are at such risk. During the Obama administration, the EPA has invested significant time and effort to develop new policies, tools and strategies to address income- and race-based disparities in environmental protection. Yet, because nearly all of these efforts have been pursued without the force of law or regulation, they can be easily (and quietly) reversed. </p>
<h2>Redirected or ignored</h2>
<p>There are many ways in which the new leadership at the EPA can undermine federal environmental justice policies and programs. </p>
<p>First, President Trump could revoke President Clinton’s 1994 executive order on environmental justice. <a href="https://www.archives.gov/files/federal-register/executive-orders/pdf/12898.pdf">Executive Order 12898</a> requires federal agencies to make “achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income populations.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149138/original/image-20161207-18057-n4ctq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149138/original/image-20161207-18057-n4ctq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149138/original/image-20161207-18057-n4ctq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149138/original/image-20161207-18057-n4ctq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149138/original/image-20161207-18057-n4ctq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149138/original/image-20161207-18057-n4ctq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149138/original/image-20161207-18057-n4ctq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149138/original/image-20161207-18057-n4ctq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With an anti-regulation agenda, the EPA and Trump administration in general are likely to approve the North Dakota Access Pipeline project, which has become a symbol for a history of poor treatment of American Indians.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Goldman/AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Until recently, implementation of Executive Order 12898 has been weak and inconsistent, as I wrote about in <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/failed-promises">“Failed Promises: Evaluating the Federal Government’s Response to Environmental Justice</a>.” But, it remains the core statement of federal policy, and it has important symbolic value for environmental justice advocates. </p>
<p>Short of revocation, the EPA administrator could reinterpret the executive order to make it virtually meaningless. This occurred under the leadership of former EPA administrators Christie Todd Whitman and Stephen Johnson during the George W. Bush administration, when the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-10/documents/20040301-2004-p-00007.pdf">EPA essentially redefined</a> environmental justice to diminish its focus on poor and minority communities. The consequence of this action was to signal to EPA staff, and the states that help implement federal programs, that promoting environmental justice was not an agency priority.</p>
<p>Second, the Trump EPA could set aside the agency’s EJ 2020 Action Agenda, either formally or simply by ignoring it. The EPA is under no legal requirement to pursue the items enumerated in this agenda. Similarly, the new administrator and politically appointed program heads could instruct staff to set aside procedures set forth in new policy guidance. This guidance, developed as part of the EPA’s <a href="https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/plan-ej-2014">Plan EJ 2014</a> program, created procedures to consider environmental justice routinely throughout agency decisions, in areas ranging from permitting to rulemaking to enforcement. But, because these procedures are discretionary, they can be formally replaced, or just neglected.</p>
<h2>What is at stake?</h2>
<p>To the extent that the Trump EPA either relaxes the stringency of current regulations and/or elects not to pursue new protections, the effects could fall disproportionately on historically vulnerable communities. </p>
<p>Because major sources of pollution are more likely to be located in poor and minority communities, efforts to reduce pollution tend to positively affect people living in these areas. As a result, recent EPA efforts to tighten air quality standards, for example, on <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/122983/epa-finally-getting-serious-about-protecting-poor-communities">toxic emissions from oil refineries</a>, specifically benefit many low-income and minority communities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149139/original/image-20161207-18042-lj6i9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149139/original/image-20161207-18042-lj6i9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149139/original/image-20161207-18042-lj6i9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149139/original/image-20161207-18042-lj6i9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149139/original/image-20161207-18042-lj6i9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149139/original/image-20161207-18042-lj6i9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149139/original/image-20161207-18042-lj6i9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149139/original/image-20161207-18042-lj6i9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A gathering in 2013 to protest the health problems, such as respiratory illnesses and cancer, from an incinerator located in Baltimore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/unitedworkers/12119826803/in/photostream/">Unitedworkers/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If the EPA, most likely with a drastically reduced budget, pulls back from enforcing existing pollution control programs, this may create further inequities in environmental burdens. More “business-friendly” permitting and lax compliance monitoring are relatively discreet ways to lower the regulatory burden facing power plants, factories and other major sources of pollution. </p>
<p>Further, most of the day-to-day implementation of major federal pollution control statutes is managed by state agencies. And under the leadership of Scott Pruitt, the EPA is likely to look for opportunities to hand off additional responsibilities to state governments.</p>
<p>State efforts are supposed to be overseen by EPA’s ten regional offices. But if these offices do not perform robust oversight, states are left to administer these programs as they see fit. In some states, this could exacerbate class- and race-based disparities in regulatory enforcement, as I have found already to exist in research with Chris Reenock on the <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1017/S0022381613000170">Clean Air Act</a>, and in other research on the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pam.20404/full">Clean Water Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act</a>.</p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-10/documents/_epaoig_20161020-17-p-0004.pdf">lack of federal oversight by EPA’s Region 5</a> office was a <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/documents/snyder/FWATF_FINAL_REPORT_21March2016_517805_7.pdf">significant contributing factor</a> to the Flint crisis. If oversight becomes even less rigorous, the potential for Flint-like situations to emerge elsewhere in the country only increases.</p>
<h2>Any reason for optimism?</h2>
<p>Perhaps, these worst-case scenarios will not come to pass. Career staff could push back against a new leadership team hostile to its ideals. In some respects, agency personnel <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-the-presidential-race-lessons-from-the-reagan-years-66194">responded this way</a> to the anti-regulatory, budget-minimizing tenure of Ann Gorsuch, the first EPA administrator appointed by President Reagan. </p>
<p>And, perhaps, President-elect Trump will surprise. A consistent policy priority of the incoming administration has been rebuilding the country through new infrastructure. If such an infrastructure program includes major investments in wastewater treatment, for example, this may enhance environmental quality for some poor and minority communities. </p>
<p>Details of this and other priorities have yet to emerge, however. And, the early signs from the campaign trail and now the appointment of Scott Pruitt to head the agency portend an EPA that is likely to deprioritize, if not attempt to dismantle, important environmental protection measures. For the people living in already overburdened communities, the potential risks of this type of retrenchment are real and personal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69525/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Konisky receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.</span></em></p>The hostility of Scott Pruitt, Trump’s nominee to head the EPA, toward climate change rules is well-known. But his anti-regulatory stance could easily set back years of work on environmental justice.David Konisky, Associate Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/700162016-12-07T02:10:41Z2016-12-07T02:10:41ZHow Standing Rock became a site of pilgrimage<p>The Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency responsible for investigating, developing and maintaining water and related environmental resources, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/04/us/federal-officials-to-explore-different-route-for-dakota-pipeline.html?_r=0">recently announced</a> that they would not allow the Dakota Access pipeline to be constructed under the Missouri River and through <a href="https://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=42">Lakota territory</a>. </p>
<p>This decision essentially ended the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s protest against the pipeline, which they claimed would both desecrate their sacred sites and cause potential environmental harm. </p>
<p>The Standing Rock Sioux tribe was able to achieve this victory in part because of the assistance of thousands of “water protectors.” In his letter of thanks, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman David Archambault Jr. <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/12/05/standing-rock-could-not-come-far-alone">wrote</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Standing Rock could not have come this far alone. Hundreds of tribes came together in a display of tribal unity not seen in hundreds of years. And many thousands of indigenous people from around the world have prayed with us and made us stronger.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thousands of people, both those within Native American communities and their non-Native allies, felt called to go to Standing Rock. But what drew that many people to Standing Rock? </p>
<p>As a Native American scholar of environmental history and religion, I believe that for most individuals who gathered at the site, it was a modern-day pilgrimage.</p>
<p>Here’s why.</p>
<h2>Idea of pilgrimage</h2>
<p>First, what is a pilgrimage? Anthropologists <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0074.xml">Victor Turner</a> and <a href="https://anthropology.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/elt9w">Edith Turner</a> in their classic study <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/image-and-pilgrimage-in-christian-culture/9780231157919">“Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture”</a> addressed that question when they researched the personal motivations of those who traveled long distances on pilgrimage. </p>
<p>Their answer was twofold. The Turners contended that individuals on a spiritual quest seek both an “out of this ordinary world” experience and a sense of community, “unity” or “oneness” with those on a similar quest. Individuals on a pilgrimage usually have these experiences both while traveling to certain places of transcendence and while at those sacred places. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148932/original/image-20161206-15197-1sf50ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148932/original/image-20161206-15197-1sf50ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148932/original/image-20161206-15197-1sf50ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148932/original/image-20161206-15197-1sf50ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148932/original/image-20161206-15197-1sf50ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148932/original/image-20161206-15197-1sf50ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148932/original/image-20161206-15197-1sf50ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What does pilgrimage mean?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/40969298@N05/28861524604/in/photolist-LL4rzs-KYsca7-Lu7r7w-LL4ph1-KYDTXg-LSAxaG-LVAn4F-Lu4yG7-LKZUrS-LVAfei-LVAcjk-KYAKvc-LSynhj-KYABkK-KYAy18-KYp2SW-LVzX7n-LSyc3G-KYoRKb-KYoQbQ-LVzPVi-LNvACx-LNvzhr-LKZnVG-LNvwnP-LSxZzb-KYoHjU-LSxYcm-LVzEuz-LNvq84-LSxTBj-KYox31-LKZ6X9-Lu3GeU-LVzgW8-LSxDKw-KYzE28-KYoaXW-LtYLbu-LNqX1X-LNqUt2-LNqRfD-LVuYoR-LVuVLX-LKUuC9-KYiGeh-LKUqab-KYvpL2-LSsESS-LrrLn7">Joe Brusky</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/ac/people/faculty/pdeloria.html">Lakota scholar Philip Deloria</a>, has also described how the transformative experience of Native American sacred places provides meaning and personal growth for individuals who journey to be in their presence. In the book <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=_khgtBPZZyYC&pg=PR4&lpg=PR4&dq=American+Indian+Places:+A+Historical+Guidebook+edited+by+Frances+Kennedy&source=bl&ots=3WlSgx0WaL&sig=iPXgS4AFnkhMNN0CZO_8ZQFz1FQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjksLHw6d_QAhUCMGMKHf4_D6YQ6AEIYzAK#v=onepage&q=American%20Indian%20Places%3A%20A%20Historical%20Guidebook%20edited%20by%20Frances%20Kennedy&f=false">“American Indian Places</a>,” Deloria discusses how people are likely to return to these important places again and again. </p>
<p>Going to Standing Rock evolved into a pilgrimage for many Native Americans: they left their “ordinary” lives behind to journey to a Lakota sacred place, and participate in a larger collective action.</p>
<p>My cousin Renee LaPier and her daughter Modesta LaPier, for example, journeyed 2,600 miles to and from Standing Rock. As Ojibwe women, with family on the Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota, they felt inspired to go to Standing Rock after meeting hundreds of like-minded individuals at a “water protectors” gathering they organized in their hometown of Portland, Oregon. </p>
<p>Going to Standing Rock forced them and others to step out of their “ordinary” modern lives and travel to a remote rural area of the U.S. with few amenities including no cellphone coverage. And once at the site, they encountered a transformative experience. Reflecting on her experience, <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2016/09/crowd_protests_dakota_access_p.html">Renee said</a>, “It’s personal. It’s deeply deeply personal. It’s important for all of us to stand up together.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148933/original/image-20161206-13648-1oo1gd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148933/original/image-20161206-13648-1oo1gd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148933/original/image-20161206-13648-1oo1gd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148933/original/image-20161206-13648-1oo1gd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148933/original/image-20161206-13648-1oo1gd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148933/original/image-20161206-13648-1oo1gd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148933/original/image-20161206-13648-1oo1gd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Going on a pilgrimage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/40969298@N05/29406026821/in/photolist-LL4rzs-KYsca7-Lu7r7w-LL4ph1-KYDTXg-LSAxaG-LVAn4F-Lu4yG7-LKZUrS-LVAfei-LVAcjk-KYAKvc-LSynhj-KYABkK-KYAy18-KYp2SW-LVzX7n-LSyc3G-KYoRKb-KYoQbQ-LVzPVi-LNvACx-LNvzhr-LKZnVG-LNvwnP-LSxZzb-KYoHjU-LSxYcm-LVzEuz-LNvq84-LSxTBj-KYox31-LKZ6X9-Lu3GeU-LVzgW8-LSxDKw-KYzE28-KYoaXW-LtYLbu-LNqX1X-LNqUt2-LNqRfD-LVuYoR-LVuVLX-LKUuC9-KYiGeh-LKUqab-KYvpL2-LSsESS-LrrLn7">Joe Brusky</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Modern-day pilgrimage</h2>
<p>It is not just Native Americans who have gone to Standing Rock. On Dec. 5 an estimated 2,000 U.S. veterans, both Native American and their non-Native allies, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/us/veterans-north-dakota-standing-rock.html?_r=0">made their pilgrimage</a> to Standing Rock in a freezing blizzard. They came from across the U.S. and other parts of the world; they represented American veterans from many conflicts and wars, including older Korean and Vietnam vets and younger Iraqi vets. They said they came to Standing Rock for “peace and prayer.” </p>
<p>What does this mean?</p>
<p>Religious scholar <a href="https://www.cmich.edu/colleges/chsbs/PHLREL/Religion/Faculty/Pages/default.aspx">Laurel Zwissler</a> has studied why and how young people are “<a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739127940/Feminist-Spirituality-The-Next-Generation">refocusing their personal religious practices</a>” to include “religious practice with public action.” She explains how they are blending their individual religious ideas and political activism into a new form of religious expression.</p>
<p>Zwissler’s research reveals participating in protests, even those across a great distance, becomes a new place of individual and collective spiritual practice.</p>
<p>Many Native Americans and non-Native allies viewed going to Standing Rock as a pilgrimage. I have read <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ShaileneWoodley/">hundreds</a> of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MarkRuffalo/">social media posts</a> of people who were drawn to go there as a spiritual quest, reflecting on how the experience changed their sense of identity, gave meaning to their lives, provided a sense of community and transformed them forever. </p>
<p>Even Chairman David Archambault Jr., in an address to the veterans, said their pilgrimage had meaning because “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/us/veterans-north-dakota-standing-rock.html">What you’re doing is sacred.</a>” </p>
<p>I believe a modern kind of pilgrimage for Native Americans is emerging in which people travel to sites of collective action as a form of religious practice. It is true that some come for personal goals of spiritual awakening and some to journey to a sacred place. And, there are others who undertake a spiritual journey to find community, and purpose. </p>
<p>In the end, utilizing prayer and ceremony, they would have all experienced a pilgrimage – returning to their home different from when they left.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosalyn R. LaPier is affiliated with Saokio Heritage. </span></em></p>Thousands of people, both those within Native American communities and their non-Native allies, felt called to go to Standing Rock. What was the motivation?Rosalyn R. LaPier, Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, Environmental Studies and Native American Religion, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/698812016-12-06T02:25:38Z2016-12-06T02:25:38ZVictory at Standing Rock reflects a failure of US energy and climate policy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148750/original/image-20161205-8009-1u7rixc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gatherers in Cannon Ball, North Dakota celebrate news that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers won't grant an easement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/David Goldman</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The protesters have won. On Sunday, Dec. 4, swayed by possible violence over the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in North Dakota, the Obama administration declared <a href="https://www.army.mil/article/179095/army_will_not_grant_easement_for_dakota_access_pipeline_crossing">a new route</a> must be chosen. The decision came one day before the official deadline for the protesters to evacuate federal land and just as thousands of <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/04/veterans-arrive-at-standing-rock-willing-to-take-a-bullet-to-protect-water-protectors.html">veterans</a> were arriving to act as “shields” for the protesters should any need arise. </p>
<p>In the end, no need did arise, as authorities promised. The pipeline, said to cross sacred sites and to threaten water used by the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, will have to cross the Missouri River somewhere else – unless the incoming administration of Donald Trump <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/latest-national-tribal-leader-praises-pipeline-decision-43981180">seeks to reverse the decision</a>.</p>
<p>The victory must be sweet, for some. But the issues revealed by this local-conflict-turned-national-movement are anything but resolved. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste, so it makes sense to ask hard questions about a troubled U.S. energy situation, which this conflict has illuminated.</p>
<h2>History and symbolism</h2>
<p>What is the big picture? A <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-dakota-access-pipeline/">Native American group</a> and environmentalists, plus other supporters (celebrities, musicians, etc.), are on one side. And on the other is an oil pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP of Dallas, Texas), which is supported in part by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and local police. </p>
<p>The protesters, some of whom called themselves water protectors, claimed the pipeline disrupted sacred sites and burial grounds and that its planned route under the Missouri River threatened the water supply of the Standing Sioux. ETP and the Army Corps of Engineers insisted the water would be <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/business/energy/2016/09/13/kelcy-warrens-energy-transfer-partners-responds-protest-dakota-access-pipeline">safe</a>, as all regulations were obeyed, and the company is 100 percent liable for any damage.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Delaying or scrapping an oil pipeline project of any kind means more oil will be transported by rail, which also has risks of spills.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/royluck/12859842853/in/photolist-c6WknQ-kAo4fv-dLg2aE-dUKFmB-oaMiTc-c6Wm3q-vFEDXv-vYy8EZ-osepMy-vXwRrf-vYy8S2-v2hLeV-vXwPXo-vFxGFS-vXwQZJ-vFEDrk-vXwQyo-v2hLtc-vYy97a-v29jQf-vFxvad-vFxGxf-vXwR5J-vYy8t6-pRUB1u-v2hKgc-vFEDCn-vVQURb-vYy7Bg-vFxGRG-vXwRmA-vYy87z-vFxtMo-v29kNh-v29kao-vYy8oB-v2hL8c-vVQUd7-v2hLSi-vFxGD7-vVQUJC-vFxHbu-vFED84-vFxGro-vFEEMB-vFxJ5U-vYacK2">royluck/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A second question concerns context. Fundamentally, this comes back not to water, but oil. Petroleum powers <a href="http://www.iea.org/topics/transport/">over 90 percent</a> of transportation on Earth, and this won’t change for decades: Think of <a href="http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1093560_1-2-billion-vehicles-on-worlds-roads-now-2-billion-by-2035-report">a billion cars</a> (millions more each year), plus millions of planes, trains, trucks, boats and military vehicles – all powered by oil. This makes oil economically critical and a matter of national security.</p>
<p>The U.S., meanwhile, has hugely <a href="http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=20892">improved</a> its energy and national security due to the fracking “revolution.” Money leaving the country to support petrostate dictators is <a href="http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_imports">dramatically down since 2010</a> because of a domestic drilling boom. It is possible, if prices rise, that domestic oil companies will export to U.S. allies, reducing their dependence on such places. </p>
<p>North Dakota is a center of the new production. Because drilling grew very rapidly when prices were high (2011-2014), far more oil was extracted than existing pipelines could handle. This meant a surge in oil trains moving crude to East Coast, Midwest and West Coast refineries at much higher cost and risk to people, waterways and the environment. <a href="https://northdakotapipelines.com/rail-transportation/">Rail shipments</a> now total about 300,000 barrels per day (bbls/d). Planned for 470,000 bbls/d, the DAPL is therefore a much-needed way to get oil off trains and to market. Viewed in this way, the victory at Standing Rock is rough justice for those who want to stop seeing oil trains roll through their towns and cities. </p>
<p>A second element of context is the volatile mixture of history and symbolism. This involves a dark history of domestic colonialism, the innumerable crimes perpetrated by the government against Native Americans, touched on here by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-archaeological-review-behind-the-dakota-access-pipeline-went-wrong-67815">pipeline crossing burial and artifact sites</a>. </p>
<p>The matter is not academic history but a powerful part of present-day memory and identity. It should not be surprising that skepticism results when federal authorities offer assurances the pipeline will be safe. In truth, the DAPL is <a href="http://www.daplpipelinefacts.com/resources/faq.html">advanced</a>, with the latest sensors to detect even slight flow irregularities and valve systems to automatically shut down the line if problems occur. As an interstate pipeline, the DAPL is mandated to have a high level of engineering, inspection and monitoring. Yet, in the realm of broken history, little of this translates to confidence. </p>
<h2>Water and climate</h2>
<p>The question still must be asked: How real is the threat to water? Not very. The U.S. has roughly <a href="http://phmsa.dot.gov/portal/site/PHMSA/menuitem.6f23687cf7b00b0f22e4c6962d9c8789/?vgnextoid=a62924cc45ea4110VgnVCM1000009ed07898RCRD&vgnextchannel=daa52186536b8210VgnVCM1000001ecb7898RCRD&vgnextfmt=print">160,000 miles</a> of pipelines moving crude and refined oil. Over half the American population lives downstream from one or more lines. Many cross the Missouri River downriver from North Dakota. The DAPL itself will cross several rivers, including the Mississippi, before ending at a transport hub in southern Illinois. The chances of one tiny segment of a 1,200-mile pipeline rupturing, especially in a nonindustrial area, are very small. </p>
<p>Pipeline <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/pipelines-explained-how-safe-are-americas-2.5-million-miles-of-pipelines">safety problems are real</a>, true enough. But the risk is concentrated in certain kinds of pipelines, notably those that are old (over 35 years), local and poorly maintained. None of this applies to the DAPL. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A protest in San Francisco: The months-long protests at Standing Rock have galvanized people from around the world because of the powerful symbol of the pipeline project.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/43005015@N06/25379625129/in/photolist-EEHdkB-NN5GSu-NN5Go3-PfJERt-EEHbLK-EEHbqV-NN5AB3-NN5zb7-NN5xYs-NN5wJd-EEDsL8-EEDsEX-EEDsye-EEBF9D-AMWR9Q-EEBEX6-AMWQXh-EEBENi-AMWQKJ-AMWQz3-AMWQpU-PfDxu4-EEBE8F-PfDxe4-EEBDTT-PfDwQ8-NMZikE-EEBD9g-NMZic3-EEBCQF-NMZhMA-EEBCCg-NMZhCY-EEBCsX-NMZhp1-EEBCdt-AMe3u9-NM7LsY-PbDip5-P25FTi-P25EE6-P25DmV-P25C4z-NGcZ7A-NGcXyW-P9Twer-P6Fe4s-P9Tt48-P6F9zh-P6F7uW">Peg Hunter/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How do the environmentalists fit in (I promise not to discuss celebrities)? A skeptic might say they came to exploit a ripe situation and to further America’s hate affair with the oil industry. True in part, this overlooks the larger reality and its symbolic charge. Stopping the pipeline in one spot, after all, won’t stop oil altogether. </p>
<p>Climate change, however, is a threat most of all to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-native-american-pipeline-resistance-in-north-dakota-is-about-climate-justice-64714">indigenous peoples around the world</a>. These are people commonly without power who rely on immediately available resources for survival. In the wake of Donald Trump’s election, with its prospect of a great reversal in U.S. climate policy, environmentalists feel common cause with such groups and an intensified need to oppose fossil fuel projects, even the wrong ones. </p>
<h2>Example from Russia?</h2>
<p>Finally, what has been ETP’s stance? The company largely avoided the media spotlight. Oil companies know from long experience it is a waste of time to expect a fair trial in the court of public opinion. </p>
<p>ETP saw the DAPL as a major investment that would serve shareholders, North Dakota and the nation all at once – a winning combination. It played by the written rules, invested much time and money, designed a state-of-the-art pipeline, and worked with the Army Corps of Engineers in meetings with tribal leaders. Doubtless it feels betrayed by Sunday’s decision; it has supply deadlines to meet. </p>
<p>Yet it has <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/5/13840934/dakota-access-pipeline-energy-transfer-partners-army-corps-trump">rejected</a> the new decision, claiming the government is “currying favor with a narrow and extreme political constituency.” It will most likely wait for better weather under the Trump administration. This seems foolish and guaranteed to create more trouble if followed through. Even Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, to avoid a public movement, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/apr/27/russia.oil">rerouted a major pipeline</a> in 2006 away from Lake Baikal. </p>
<h2>Adding it up</h2>
<p>The Standing Rock protest, then, is a keyhole into a landscape of unsettled relations regarding energy in America. These relations are tinged with distrust and hostility on all sides. </p>
<p>They include a public fearful about facing the realities of our current energy system, including the risk of oil spills, even as it consumes the largest volumes of oil per capita in the world. They involve activists who, out of frustration, blindly oppose any large-scale fossil fuel or nuclear project, practicing national nimbyism. They are rounded out by a deeply jaded energy industry, mistrustful of the media, the public and the Democratic Party. </p>
<p>Lastly, there is Washington, which has never put together a real domestic energy policy. With regard to fossil, nuclear or renewable sources, policy tends to swing from pro to semi-pro to con to semi-con with every change of administration. To deal with the real problems of energy, climate change above all, this situation needs to change – something all parties should recognize.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott L. Montgomery does not work or consult for any company or organization mentioned in this article. </span></em></p>The protesters have scored a big victory in the Dakota Access Pipeline conflict, but it’s served only to illuminate the sharp divisions over energy policy in the US.Scott L. Montgomery, Lecturer, Jackson School of International Studies, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/693642016-12-04T18:16:49Z2016-12-04T18:16:49ZHow the pursuit of carbon and fossil fuels harms vulnerable communities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148262/original/image-20161201-25674-1we1cnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Niger Delta, where the rights of humans have been violated in the pursuit of oil.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sosialistiskungdom/4555322007/in/photolist-7WxdwB-75eU7R-79d8kD-79gZrU-bVnizL-79d8sT-79d8X2-79d8Y6-CyL86-cwv9B7-79d8Vx-79gZF3-79gZM9-79gZH7-BbQm-79h1cm-79d8Qk-79gZDG-79d8yP-74ekj9-7dDZ9-7fGMn-7X9Bwx-7dF4o-7fGzG-7fGvy-7fGKo-7dEyE-7fGWe-7fGBS-7fGTG-9KKECR-79d8Wv-79gZJy-79d8QR-79d99V-79d8AV-79h3Mf-79h17G-79gZMG-79gZCd-79h1fb-79gZsY-7XcRg7-79gZD3-7WXdw8-79h13S-7XcQZC-79gZHN-79h13h">Flickr/Sosialistisk Ungdom (SU)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>2016 is set to be the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/14/2016-will-be-the-hottest-year-on-record-un-says">hottest year on record</a>. Global temperatures are already 1,2°C above pre-industrial levels, and total reductions in emissions, committed by individual countries, far exceed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/nov/19/marrakech-climate-talks-wind-down-with-maze-of-ambition-still-ahead?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+AUS+v1+-+AUS+morning+mail+callout&utm_term=200549&subid=8497857&CMP=ema_632">globally agreed targets.</a> This puts us on track for <a href="http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php">dangerous climate change</a>. </p>
<p>At a time when the transition to a low carbon future has never been more urgent, developed countries appear locked into ongoing support for the dirty fossil fuel industries. In championing fossil fuels, indigenous peoples – First Nations and Aboriginal people – whose lives and territories have been affected by the destructive forces of colonisation, now face the violence of resource extractivism. Indigenous peoples are defined as people with specific rights and law, bound by historical ties to a location.</p>
<p>Indigenous peoples from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the <a href="http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:360084">Americas</a>, Northern Europe and the African continent, for example, face disproportionate discrimination, intimidation and <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/how-many-more/">violence</a> compared to non-indigenous people. Their traditional lands are directly threatened by <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reverse-Anthropology-Indigenous-Environmental-Relations/dp/0804753423/ref=pd_sim_14_20?ie=UTF8&dpID=41kJWm69dhL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&refRID=0KM31X1H8FD7X91WG5Q4">resource extractivism and its pollution</a>. </p>
<h2>The rich and poor divide</h2>
<p>Developing countries and low lying island states are among the most defenceless in the context of a changing climate. African nations are among the most <a href="http://www.cgdev.org/publication/quantifying-vulnerability-climate-change-implications-adaptation-assistance-working">vulnerable</a>. The <a href="https://healthpovertyaction.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2014/07/Honest-Accounts-report-v4-web.pdf">cost of adapting</a> to climate change on the African continent is estimated at $10.6 billion each year. The most precarious nations are also <a href="https://healthpovertyaction.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2014/07/Honest-Accounts-report-v4-web.pdf">least responsible</a> for climate change. Africa contributes less than 4% to global emissions. </p>
<p>Human induced climate change is significantly tied to the activities of developed countries. But the Paris Agreement fails to distinguish, or call out, developed countries’ distinct responsibilities. Global adaptation finance is delayed –- including funding for the <a href="http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/environmentandenergy/projects_and_initiatives/aap.html">Africa Adaptation Initiative</a> –- by developed countries, who frequently cry poor.</p>
<p>Funding for adaptation projects languishes, but G7 countries and Australia pay around $67 billion in <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/g20-fossil-fuel-subsidies-450b-1.3314291">subsidies</a> to the <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/australian-fossil-fuel-subsidies-put-at-5-6bn-a-year-in-new-report-43490">oil, coal and gas industries.</a>. This is almost 20 times as much as they contribute to <a href="http://www.redd-monitor.org/2016/11/17/so-farewell-then-un-redd/">adaptation projects</a> in developing countries. This is not surprising, given the ever increasing role of <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/11/15/meet-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-and-climate-science-deniers-marrakech-cop22-talks">fossil fuel lobbyists</a> in climate negotiations. </p>
<p>Many developed and some developing countries remain strong backers for the fossil fuel industries –- including enabling new coal mines. This is despite growing calls for 80% of remaining coal to <a href="http://priceofoil.org/2016/09/22/the-skys-limit-report/">stay in the ground</a> and for every <a href="http://climateanalytics.org/latest/paris-agreement-has-put-a-date-on-the-end-of-coal-fired-power">coal power plant</a> to close by 2050 according Paris Agreement commitments.</p>
<p>Fossil fuels are also championed as a panacea for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/aug/17/how-the-fossil-fuel-industrys-new-pitch-is-more-like-an-epitaph-than-a-life-lesson">energy poverty</a>. Not too long ago, an Australian Prime Minister boldly declared that coal is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/13/tony-abbott-says-coal-is-good-for-humanity-while-opening-mine">‘good for humanity’</a>. </p>
<h2>Indigenous communities carry the costs</h2>
<p>Competing visions regarding energy futures in a climate constrained world is driving conflict. And indigenous communities are frequently at the forefront of this violence and intimidation. This is well reported on the African continent. Examples include the convergence of state and corporate interests in driving <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4006964?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">petro violence</a> in <a href="https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/018138b_tni_nigeria-resistance.pdf">Nigeria</a>, South Africa, <a href="http://nape.or.ug/index.php/projects/extractive-industries">Uganda</a> and elsewhere. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/21/dakota-access-pipeline-water-cannon-police-standing-rock-protest">State based violence</a> against the current campaign of North Dakota’s Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is an example. They are looking to defend their water, land and way of life against the North Dakota access oil pipeline. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters standing with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the North Dakota Oil Pipeline.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Australia there is a similar case. Indigenous people are defending their land against Indian industrial conglomerate Adani’s proposed Carmichael coal mine. The mine would be Australia’s largest ever coal mine, and the third largest in the world. A <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20689&LangID=E">UN Special Rapporteur</a> recently reported that Indigenous people opposing the mine face severe social costs upon their lives. Despite this, the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners Council stand resolute in their opposition, describing that the proposed mine would <a href="http://wanganjagalingou.com.au/our-fight/">“tear the heart out”</a> of their ancestral lands. </p>
<p>Yet, instead of phasing out heavy polluting fossil fuels’ industries, carbon markets have been widely championed as a magic bullet to address climate change. </p>
<h2>Carbon markets</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.no-redd-africa.org/index.php/16-redd-players/84-the-worst-redd-type-projects-in-africa-continent-grab-for-carbon-colonialism">Carbon markets</a>, through the trade in carbon credits, are understood to enable high emitting countries and sectors to offset their pollution – rather than curb it. </p>
<p>This is done through support for activities that absorb greenhouse gases elsewhere. <a href="http://www.redd-monitor.org/2016/04/04/more-than-80-ngos-oppose-aviation-sectors-carbon-offsetting-plans/">The aviation sector</a>, one of the highest emitting sectors globally, widely champion carbon offset as a key strategy in becoming carbon neutral. Their <a href="http://www.redd-monitor.org/2016/04/04/more-than-80-ngos-oppose-aviation-sectors-carbon-offsetting-plans/">emissions</a> doubled between 1990 and 2006, and with predictions this could increase a further 70% by 2020. </p>
<p>Carbon market projects, including Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation type projects, carbon capture and forestry schemes, are concentrated in <a href="http://blog.cifor.org/5623/new-cifor-map-gives-first-global-overview-of-redd?fnl=en">developing countries</a>. They have <a href="http://www.no-redd-africa.org/index.php/16-redd-players/84-the-worst-redd-type-projects-in-africa-continent-grab-for-carbon-colonialism">mixed outcomes</a> for people on the ground. </p>
<h2>An uncertain future</h2>
<p>In some cases, communities and civil society have <a href="http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol19/iss1/art21/">effectively negotiated</a> to deliver some benefits, including local employment, access to timber and other forest products. In many other cases, however, local communities are excluded from <a href="https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/land-deals-africa-green-resources">land</a> – often after being forcibly and <a href="https://ejatlas.org/conflict/face-project-rehabilitation-of-mt-elgon-and-kibale-national-park-uganda">violently removed</a> – as well as being denied access to natural assets like water and forest resources. </p>
<p>The case of <a href="https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/land-deals-africa-green-resources">Green Resources</a> , one of the largest industrial plantation forestry operations on the African continent, powerfully demonstrates this impact. The cessation of payment by its carbon credit buyer, the <a href="http://www.redd-monitor.org/2015/11/27/the-swedish-energy-agency-has-frozen-carbon-credits-purchases-from-norwegian-plantation-firm-green-resources/">Swedish Energy Agency</a>, has been a direct outcome of exposure of the companies’ environmental and human rights abuses. </p>
<p>Local ecology is also often <a href="http://carbonmarketwatch.org/engos-and-scientists-challenge-the-swedish-energy-agency-stop-supporting-false-climate-change-solutions-in-uganda/">destroyed</a>, as the Green Resources case shows. Engaging civil society to reform carbon markets that deliver benefits to local communities are also often <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150.2014.992884">severely constrained.</a> </p>
<p>Despite on-going questions about the impact of REDD type projects at the local level, many countries have <a href="http://theforestsdialogue.org/initiatives/redd-readiness-initiative">invested</a> time and resources to lock in their participation. This has occurred at the same time as the future of carbon markets becomes increasingly <a href="http://carbonmarketwatch.org/carbon-markets-in-the-paris-agreement-whats-next-on-the-negotiation-agenda/">uncertain</a>. </p>
<p>The future of carbon markets remains uncertain, but the need for urgent action to avert catastrophic climate change is clear. Ambitious action to address climate change remains constrained, especially with the developed world continuing to play handmaiden to the fossil fuel industries, and climate talks corrupted by fossil fuel interests. </p>
<p>Global Indigenous and human rights movements – like those opposing the oil, coal and gas industries – are charting a path for a fair and just transition to a low carbon energy future. It is these rights, articulated by the <a href="http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf">United Nations</a>, not fossil fuels and markets, that must be at the heart of responses to the climate crisis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69364/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Associate Professor Kristen Lyons is a Senior Research Fellow with the Oakland Institute, and is affiliated with the Australian Greens. </span></em></p>Global indigenous and human rights movements that oppose the oil, coal and gas industries are charting a path for a fair and just transition to a low carbon energy future.Kristen Lyons, Associate Professor Environment and Development Sociology, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/678152016-11-21T01:21:30Z2016-11-21T01:21:30ZHow the archaeological review behind the Dakota Access Pipeline went wrong<p>This summer, Tim Mentz Sr. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EAWpI5L_Bc">took to YouTube</a> to tell the world about the destruction of his cultural heritage. A former tribal historic preservation officer of the Standing Rock Sioux, Mentz wore a baseball cap, rimless glasses and two thin braids of graying hair. He was upset and spoke rapidly about the area behind him, an expanse of the Great Plains cut by a new 150-foot-wide road.</p>
<p>Two days before, <a href="http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/09/19/grave-matters-pipeline-controversy/">Mentz had testified</a> to the D.C. District Court to report the area that lay in the path of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) corridor holds 82 cultural features and 27 graves. By the next day, DAPL construction workers <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/6/did_the_dakota_access_pipeline_company">graded the area</a>. Behind where Mentz stood in the video was a place known as the Strong Heart Society Staff, where a sacred rattle or staff was placed within stone rings. Here members of the elite warrior society would come to make pledges. Mentz explained the site is tangible evidence that Strong Heart members followed a “spiritual path.”</p>
<p>As an anthropologist who has worked with Native Americans for more than a decade to document their sacred places in the paths of new power plants, power lines, water pipelines and more, <a href="http://www.sapiens.org/culture/native-american-activism-standing-rock/">the battle in North Dakota</a> is all too familiar. </p>
<p>I have seen how the legal process behind environmental and archaeological reviews for energy projects, such DAPL, work – and often don’t work. The tragedy in North Dakota for cultural heritage – and the <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/6/full_exclusive_report_dakota_access_pipeline">violence against protesters</a> that has resulted – comes in part from a failure of the U.S. legal system. Consultation with tribes too often breaks down because federal agencies are unwilling to consider how Native Americans view their own heritage.</p>
<p>“Archaeologists – they don’t see these,” Mentz said in the video of features, including graves, within the Strong Heart Society site. “The [archaeological] firm that came through here walked over these. They do not have a connection that we have to our spiritual walk of life.”</p>
<h2>Irreplaceable heritage</h2>
<p>If completed, the <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/understanding-controversy-behind-dakota-access-pipeline-180960450/?no-ist">Dakota Access Pipeline</a> would run from North Dakota to Illinois for nearly 1,200 miles, carrying up to 570,000 barrels of crude oil per day. DAPL would meander across the landscape, through farms, around cities, buried underground and across more than 200 waterways. The passage of the pipeline over and under waterways requires permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This federal authorization in turns requires compliance with the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/history/local-law/nhpa1966.htm">National Historic Preservation Act</a> (NHPA).</p>
<p>Passed into law in 1966, the NHPA arrived in the churning wake of WWII, when America’s waiting future was threatening its irreplaceable past. The expansion of American infrastructure – highways, dams, electrical grids – was swiftly destroying ancient archaeological sites, cemeteries and historic buildings. With the NHPA, Congress declared that preservation of America’s shared heritage is in the public interest.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146618/original/image-20161118-19352-t6uxvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146618/original/image-20161118-19352-t6uxvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146618/original/image-20161118-19352-t6uxvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146618/original/image-20161118-19352-t6uxvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146618/original/image-20161118-19352-t6uxvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146618/original/image-20161118-19352-t6uxvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146618/original/image-20161118-19352-t6uxvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146618/original/image-20161118-19352-t6uxvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The stand-off between Native Americans in North Dakota and an oil pipeline project developer and police forces has inspired protests across the country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paulann Egelhoff/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When considering a new undertaking, a number of effects on historic properties must be considered: direct (like physical destruction), indirect (like spoiling a viewshed), short-term, long-term, or cumulative (like how one pipeline may not harm a site, but perhaps a dozen of them will). The NHPA does not guarantee preservation. But it requires that decision-makers balance America’s interest in development with the need to honor its history.</p>
<p>For many years, Native Americans would have had little input on a project such as DAPL. But in 1992, Congress amended the NHPA to formally include <a href="https://www.nps.gov/nr/publications/bulletins/nrb38/">traditional cultural properties</a>. These are places that, because of their association with Native American cultural practices or beliefs of a living community, “are rooted in that community’s history” and “are important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community.” </p>
<p>The amendments directed federal agencies, in carrying out their responsibilities under the NHPA, to consult with Indian tribes that attach religious and cultural significance to these sacred places. </p>
<h2>Beyond consultation</h2>
<p>In North Dakota, federal and state review and compliance measures for DAPL were combined. Archaeologists walked the pipeline’s 357 miles in North Dakota, locating 149 sites potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Engineers rerouted DAPL to <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/09/09/pipeline-will-proceed-despite-tribal-protests.htm">avoid all but nine sites</a>.</p>
<p>Archaeologists serve an important role in documenting historic properties. But they tend to view the world through the lens of science and history. They search out buried villages, pottery shards, bones, broken stone tools. Yet in my experience, they rarely have the expertise and knowledge to identify traditional cultural properties, which are grounded in identity, culture, spirituality and the land’s living memory. </p>
<p>Traditional cultural properties in the U.S. can often be archaeological sites, artifacts that ancestors once touched and places that mark ancestral homes. But just as often they can be a mountain where spirits dwell or a spring where water is gathered for ceremonies. They can be a traditional area for collecting plants or animals that sustain and heal communities. They can be origin places where ancestors emerged onto the earth or named places recalled in ancient tongues. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146604/original/image-20161118-19365-c51pfe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146604/original/image-20161118-19365-c51pfe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146604/original/image-20161118-19365-c51pfe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146604/original/image-20161118-19365-c51pfe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146604/original/image-20161118-19365-c51pfe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146604/original/image-20161118-19365-c51pfe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146604/original/image-20161118-19365-c51pfe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146604/original/image-20161118-19365-c51pfe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zuni elders Octavius Seowtewa and John Bowannie, and archaeologist Sarah Herr, look at a shrine archaeologists misidentified.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chip Colwell</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is why documenting traditional cultural properties requires not the work of archaeologists but Native Americans as well. On one project I conducted with the Hopi tribe to detail cultural resources along a 470-mile power line, we needed weeks of research to identify more than 200 plant species that the tribe uses in its traditional religious and healing practices. </p>
<p>On another project I conducted with the Zuni tribe, I watched as elders explained to the archaeologists excavating a site in the path of a new Arizona highway that they had placed a survey flag in a semicircle of rocks – which was likely a shrine used to bless and protect the ancient village. When it comes to traditional practices, Native Americans see what archaeologists overlook. </p>
<h2>Tribal surveys</h2>
<p>For DAPL, a tribal survey was not undertaken. In North Dakota the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tried to engage in consultation dozens of times, but the Standing Rock Sioux largely refused because the federal agency only wanted to consult on a narrow corridor at water crossings instead of the entire pipeline. </p>
<p>Once, though, consultation did occur at Lake Oahe on March 8, 2016. Current designs call for the pipeline to <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/army-corps-delays-dakota-access-pipeline-calls-review/">go under</a> this now controversial waterway, which the Sioux want protected. There Standing Rock representatives showed U.S. Army Corps of Engineers staff important cultural resources – a cemetery, ancient village and sacred stone. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers <a href="http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/order-denying-PI.pdf">officials admitted</a> they were unaware of some of these sites.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146608/original/image-20161118-19365-363zje.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146608/original/image-20161118-19365-363zje.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146608/original/image-20161118-19365-363zje.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146608/original/image-20161118-19365-363zje.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146608/original/image-20161118-19365-363zje.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146608/original/image-20161118-19365-363zje.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146608/original/image-20161118-19365-363zje.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146608/original/image-20161118-19365-363zje.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hopi elder Harold Polingyumptewa digs up a sööyöpi root, used for healing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chip Colwell</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On Sept. 21 and then again on Oct. 20, according to an email I received from the North Dakota State Historic Preservation Office, delegations that included law enforcement, Standing Rock Sioux officials and tribal and state archaeologists went to the areas that Mentz suggested contained 82 sites and 27 burials. </p>
<p>They found on closer inspection – tribal archaeologists hadn’t been allowed on private land – that none of the features were disturbed by the 150-foot corridor, with the exception of four rocks that might have been displaced. Two bones were recovered, but analysis showed them to be from a horse, cow, or bison. It would seem that the main sites Mentz agonized over had escaped physical destruction. However, tribal input would be needed to determine if the sites, so close to the corridor, could still suffer from indirect and cumulative impacts. </p>
<h2>Not too late</h2>
<p>Because consultation broke down and so little of the pipeline has received tribal survey, we must wonder how much has been missed. Even worse, we’ll likely never know. <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/previously-proposed-route-dakota-access-pipeline-rejected/story?id=43274356">Nearly 90 percent</a> of the pipeline has already been completed.</p>
<p>This is an unfortunate but common occurrence. Last month I went out with traditional leaders of the Zuni tribe in New Mexico to identify traditional cultural properties under the NHPA in the path of a massive network of water pipelines. When we arrived, we found dozens of construction workers busily laying the new pipe. An archaeological survey was already completed; the construction had begun with the consent of the federal agency. We were too late. </p>
<p>Given that <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/14/502069069/army-wants-further-study-of-dakota-access-pipeline-route">the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is now saying</a> it needs more information before making a decision about DAPL, let’s hope in North Dakota there’s still time to finally listen to the tribe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chip Colwell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What sacred sites have been damaged by The North Dakota Access Pipeline? We can’t really know for certain – and our legal system is partly to blame.Chip Colwell, Lecturer on Anthropology, University of Colorado DenverLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/682762016-11-04T21:45:28Z2016-11-04T21:45:28ZWhat can the mass ‘check-in’ at Standing Rock tell us about online advocacy?<p>On Oct. 31, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/31/north-dakota-access-pipeline-protest-mass-facebook-check-in">more than a million Facebook users</a> “checked in” at Standing Rock Reservation, on the border between North and South Dakota. Since last March, the Standing Rock Sioux and other tribal communities and activists have been blocking the construction of a crude oil pipeline, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-understanding-native-american-religion-is-important-for-resolving-the-dakota-access-pipeline-crisis-68032">threatens sacred sites</a> and the tribe’s water supply.</p>
<p>All those users who checked in had not actually traveled to the encampment. Rather, they’d been prompted by a <a href="http://www.snopes.com/facebook-check-in-at-standing-rock/">post that went viral</a>, claiming that the local sheriff’s department was monitoring online check-ins. It asked people to “overwhelm and confuse” this surveillance effort by using a Facebook feature to signal their presence at the protest. </p>
<p>This was the first time this check-in strategy appears to have been so successful. But as has happened other times online advocacy has gone viral, skepticism and derision followed. Snopes, a site dedicated to debunking internet rumors, quickly <a href="http://www.snopes.com/facebook-check-in-at-standing-rock/">posted an explanation</a>: <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/standing-rock-facebook-dakota-access-pipeline-protest">Police were not using Facebook check-ins</a> to track protestors. </p>
<p>Mother Jones magazine described the action as a “<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/standing-rock-facebook-dakota-access-pipeline-protest">waste of time</a>.” And by titling journalist Alexis Kleinman’s otherwise helpful guide for action “<a href="https://mic.com/articles/158162/standing-rock-facebook-check-in-dakota-access-pipeline-protest-isnt-helpful-what-you-can-do#.1GpHsJ8zR">Checking into Standing Rock isn’t helpful</a>,” Mic expressed its ambivalence toward online activism. The piece’s first sentence was clear about this doubt: “Clicking a few buttons on Facebook isn’t enough to make an impact.”</p>
<p>But that rapid dismissal was too quick. As a scholar of media and advocacy, I’ve noticed skepticism whenever activism has attracted lots of attention. In fact, online connections can help overcome obstacles of space, time, income and knowledge to share stories and information while <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/occupy-wall-street-social-media_n_999178.html">linking people to each other and to opportunities for action</a>. Indeed, Mic soon revised its article headline: “Checking in at Standing Rock on Facebook is cool – but here’s how you can actually help.” That signaled an important acknowledgment: While online action alone can’t solve a problem, it can be a very useful tool to mobilize people and focus attention on a crucial issue.</p>
<h2>Concerns about surveillance</h2>
<p>One element of the post that caught people’s attention was the claim that police were electronically monitoring the protest. It was tempting to think that faraway individuals could <a href="http://www.vox.com/identities/2016/11/1/13486242/facebook-standing-rock">help thwart that police effort</a> by overloading them with false data.</p>
<p>While police say that wasn’t happening in this case, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/technology/aclu-facebook-twitter-instagram-geofeedia.html?_r=0">online surveillance of activists</a> is a real and troubling phenomenon. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security <a href="https://www.aclunc.org/blog/government-watching-blacklivesmatter-and-its-not-okay">has used social media to track Black Lives Matter activists</a> and to locate vigils and actions.</p>
<p>Even decades ago, the practical potential of online communications for organizing and mobilizing was evident. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-0374.2004.00082.x">In the 1990s, the Zapatistas in Mexico used email listservs</a> to build support and update allies around the world. During the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran, activists used <a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/06/google-maps-track-iran-protests/">Google maps and related apps</a> to direct demonstrators to safe spaces – and the police used that information against the protesters.</p>
<p>The suggestion to check in gave people not directly involved in the Standing Rock protest a plausible way to show concrete support.</p>
<h2>Mobilizing support</h2>
<p>The Standing Rock Sioux and their allies who were physically at the Sacred Stone camp <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/10/facebook-is-overtaken-with-check-ins-to-standing-rock/505988/">do not appear to have called for</a> the mass check-in action themselves. But they pronounced the Facebook activity a “<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/10/facebook-is-overtaken-with-check-ins-to-standing-rock/505988/">great way to declare solidarity</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144648/original/image-20161104-27947-ng8r6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144648/original/image-20161104-27947-ng8r6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144648/original/image-20161104-27947-ng8r6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144648/original/image-20161104-27947-ng8r6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144648/original/image-20161104-27947-ng8r6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144648/original/image-20161104-27947-ng8r6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144648/original/image-20161104-27947-ng8r6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">All your friends went where?!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, the check-in identified more than a million Facebook users who cared enough about the Standing Rock protest to identify themselves publicly as supporters. Their numbers suggested a <a href="http://uahost.uantwerpen.be/m2p/publications/1267094069.pdf">growing critical mass of public sympathy</a>, in a size that could get the attention of politicians who could halt the construction.</p>
<p>In addition, check-ins could take advantage of Facebook’s algorithms to draw even more attention to the protest. Facebook location updates are designed to appear on the feeds of friends and to <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/08/18/facebook.location/">foster connections between friends</a> who may be physically near one another. For some, <a href="http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/tips/how-to-check-in-on-facebook.htm">this allows meeting up at a concert or sale</a>. But in this case, users could exchange information – whether about the Snopes item, ways to contact government representatives to urge them to halt construction or a donation link for the <a href="http://sacredstonecamp.org/">Sacred Stone Camp Legal Defense Fund</a>.</p>
<h2>Forcing news coverage</h2>
<p>The attention built to a point where the mass media could no longer ignore it. Before the check-in action, <a href="http://theantimedia.org/native-american-pipeline-media-blackout/">there had been minimal mainstream coverage</a> of the Dakota Pipeline protest. That left protesters and supporters dependent on social media – and alternative media sources like <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/topics/dakota_access">Democracy Now</a> and <a href="http://countercurrentnews.com/">Counter Current News</a> – to pass the word.</p>
<p>The use of social media and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jun/11/rise-of-citizen-journalism">citizen journalism</a> to bypass media blackouts is nothing new. Twitter and YouTube allowed protesters to circumvent the mainstream media <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/evaluating-irans-twitter-revolution/58337/">during the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran</a>. In the summer of 2013, protesters in Istanbul took to Facebook and Twitter to report on the demonstrations and the <a href="http://civicmediaproject.org/works/civic-media-project/uptakecitizenjournalism">ensuing police brutality</a> – while CNN Turk aired <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/09/turkey-mainstream-media-penguins-protests">a documentary about penguins</a>.</p>
<p>The Standing Rock check-in did more than share news; it became a newsworthy event on its own. A million people had told Facebook – and therefore their friends – that they had gone to the Dakotas to protest a crude oil pipeline. What was going on? News organizations responded.</p>
<p>In the process, they had to explain what was happening in this remote camp that would motivate people to go there – even virtually. There was increased coverage, including from the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/10/31/why-facebook-users-are-checking-in-at-standing-rock/">Washington Post</a>, the <a href="http://www.statesman.com/technology/why-are-facebook-users-checking-standing-rock-indian-reservation/5ZzivqOeVVfmx4TBTHnalM/">Austin American-Statesman</a> and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/11/01/standing-rock-why-are-thousands-of-facebook-users-checking-in-to/">London’s Telegraph newspaper</a>. In addition to boosting coverage, the check-in action provided a story about a rising tide of public opinion supporting the protestors.</p>
<p>By looking at whether the check-in itself was effective, it is easy to lose sight of the true picture. That single action was never meant to be a click to save the world – and I don’t think anyone actually thought it was intended to. Rather, it took place within a larger context of a growing movement seeking options for further action – particularly from supporters far from the actual protest site. </p>
<p>Most advocacy activities are not used in isolation. The check-in was, instead, a way to amplify the reach and urgency of an important issue, to connect people with each other and to offer them new ways to act.</p>
<p>Whether a similar mass check-in action could work in the future remains to be seen. Some may still view the idea skeptically, in part because in this case it didn’t actually mislead the police. And Facebook itself has been less of a site for action and more of a way to share and exchange information. But for the time being, social media continues to offer opportunities for useful political organization and mobilization.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68276/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leshu Torchin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While online action alone can’t solve a problem, it can be a very useful tool to mobilize people and focus attention on a crucial issue.Leshu Torchin, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/680322016-11-03T00:13:10Z2016-11-03T00:13:10ZWhy understanding Native American religion is important for resolving the Dakota Access Pipeline crisis<p>In recent weeks, protests against the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline across North Dakota have escalated. Native American elders, families and children have set up tipis and tents on a campsite near the pipeline’s path in the hope of stopping the pipeline’s construction.</p>
<p><a href="https://votedavearchambault.wordpress.com/about/">Dave Archambault Jr.,</a> the leader of the <a href="http://standingrock.org/">Standing Rock Sioux Tribe</a> that is leading the efforts to stop the pipeline, summed up what is at the heart of the issue. In a <a href="http://indianlaw.org/undrip/Standing-Rock-Sioux-Tribe-Takes-NODAPL-to-the-United-Nations">brief two-minute statement</a> before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, he said,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Oil companies are causing deliberate destruction of our sacred places.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a Native American scholar of environmental history and religious studies, I am often asked what Native American leaders mean when they say that certain landscapes are “sacred places” or “sacred sites.” </p>
<p>What makes a mountain, hill or prairie a “sacred” place?</p>
<h2>Meaning of sacred spaces</h2>
<p>I learned from my grandparents about the sacred areas within <a href="http://blackfeetnation.com/">Blackfeet tribal territory</a> in Montana and Alberta, which is not far from Lakota tribal territory in the Dakotas. </p>
<p>My grandparents said that sacred areas are places set aside from human presence. They identified two overarching types of sacred place: those set aside for the divine, such as a dwelling place, and those set aside for human remembrance, such as a burial or battle site.</p>
<p>In my <a href="http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Invisible-Reality,677467.aspx">forthcoming book “Invisible Reality,”</a> I contemplate those stories that my grandparents shared about Blackfeet religious concepts and the interconnectedness of the supernatural and natural realms. </p>
<p>My grandparents’ stories revealed that the Blackfeet believe in a universe where supernatural beings exist within the same time and space as humans and our natural world. The deities could simultaneously exist in both as visible and invisible reality. That is, they could live unseen, but known, within a physical place visible to humans.</p>
<p>One such place for the Blackfeet is Nínaiistáko or Chief Mountain in Glacier National Park. This mountain is the home of Ksiistsikomm or Thunder, a primordial deity. My grandparents spoke of how this mountain is a liminal space, a place between two realms. </p>
<p>Blackfeet tribal citizens can go near this sacred place to perceive the divine, but they cannot go onto the mountain because it is the home of a deity. Elders of the Blackfeet tribe believe that human activity, or changing the physical landscape in these places, disrupts the lives of deities. They view this as sacrilegious and a desecration. </p>
<h2>A living text</h2>
<p>Sacred places, however, are not always set aside from humanity’s use. Some sacred places are meant for constant human interaction.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.nmai.si.edu/main/2013/08/in-memoriam-keith-h-basso-19402013.html">Anthropologist Keith Basso</a> argued in his seminal work <a href="http://www.unmpress.com/books.php?ID=770">“Wisdom Sits in Places”</a> that one purpose of sacred places was to perfect the human mind. The Western Apache elders with whom Basso worked told him that when someone repeated the names and stories of their sacred places, they were understood as “repeating the speech of our ancestors.”</p>
<p>For these Apache elders, places were not just names and stories – their landscape itself was a living sacred text. As these elders traveled from place to place speaking the names and stories of their sacred text, they told Basso that their minds became more “resilient,” more “smooth” and able to withstand adversity. </p>
<h2>The sacredness of the pipeline site</h2>
<p>At different national and international venues, Lakota leader Dave Archambault Jr. has stated that the Lakota view the area near the potential construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline as both a “sacred place” and a “burial site,” or as both a place set aside from human presence and a place of human reverence.</p>
<p>Lakota scholar Vine Deloria Jr. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_World_We_Used_to_Live_in.html?id=S6F7MKRoFS4C">described the “sacred stones”</a> in North Dakota in his book “The World We Used to Live In” as having the ability of “forewarning of events to come.”</p>
<p>Deloria described how Lakota religious leaders went to these stones in the early morning to read their messages. Deloria shared the experiences of an Episcopal minister from 1919.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A rock of this kind was formerly on Medicine Hill near Cannon Ball Sub-station…. Old Indians came to me… and said that the lightning would strike someone in camp that day, for a picture (wowapi) on this holy rock indicated such an event…. And the lightning did strike a tent in camp and nearly killed a woman…. I have known several similar things, equally foretelling events to come, I can not account for it.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_World_We_Used_to_Live_in.html?id=S6F7MKRoFS4C">Deloria explained</a> that it was “birds, directed by the spirit of the place, [that] do the actual sketching of the pictures.” The Lakota named this area Ínyanwakagapi for the large stones that served as oracles for their people. The Americans renamed it Cannonball.</p>
<h2>Not just Dakota</h2>
<p>Historians, anthropologists and religious thinkers <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Where_the_Lightning_Strikes.html?id=UpIMJdc29qoC">continue to learn and write</a> about Native American religious ideas of place. In so doing, they seek to analyze complex religious concepts of transformation and transcendence that these places evoke.</p>
<p>However, despite their contributions to the academic interpretation of religion, these understandings do not often translate into protection of Native American places for their religious significance. As <a href="https://www.aclu.org/bio/stephen-pevar">legal scholar Stephen Pevar</a> <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-rights-of-indians-and-tribes-9780199795352?cc=us&lang=en&">tells us,</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“there is no federal statue that expressly protects Indian sacred sites…. in fact, the federal government knowingly desecrates sites.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the past year we have seen protests over the potential <a href="https://www.hawaii.edu/offices/bor/regular/testimony/201504161130/4-14-2015_Toledo_TMT.pdf">desecration of sacred places</a> at Mauna Kea in Hawaii (over the construction of another telescope on a sacred volcano), <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/03/30/oak-flat-deal-violates-apache-rights-mining-best-practices">Oak Flats in Arizona</a> (over a potential copper mine on sacred land) and now at <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37834334">Standing Rock in North Dakota</a>. </p>
<h2>Lack of understanding of sacredness</h2>
<p><a href="http://hds.harvard.edu/people/william-graham">William Graham, a former dean</a> of the Harvard Divinity School, <a href="http://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/articles/summerautumn2012/why-study-religion-twenty-first-century">wrote that</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Religion… will long continue to be a critical factor in individual, social, and political life around the world, and we need to understand it.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The intimate connection between landscape and religion is at the center of Native American societies. It is the reason that thousands of Native Americans from across the United States and Indigenous peoples from around the world have traveled to the windswept prairies of North Dakota.</p>
<p>But, despite our 200-plus years of contact, the United States has yet to begin to understand the uniqueness of Native American religions and ties to the land. And until this happens, there will continue to be conflicts over religious ideas of land and landscape, and what makes a place sacred.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68032/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosalyn R. LaPier receives funding from University of Montana. She is affiliated with Saokio Heritage. </span></em></p>A scholar explains what makes landscapes sacred in Native American religion and why there needs to be a better understanding of the ties to the land.Rosalyn R. LaPier, Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, Environmental Studies and Native American Religion, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/664792016-10-17T03:35:53Z2016-10-17T03:35:53Z12 deadly Indigenous Australian social media users to follow<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141115/original/image-20161010-3906-xwcp9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">From a battle over an oil pipeline in the American mid-west to small Australian communities fighting for survival, Indigenous people are harnessing social media to take their stories global.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/40969298@N05/29405124371/in/photolist-LL4rzs-KYsca7-Lu7r7w-LL4ph1-KYDTXg-LSAxaG-LVAn4F-Lu4yG7-LKZUrS-LVAfei-LVAcjk-KYAKvc-LSynhj-KYABkK-KYAy18-KYp2SW-LVzX7n-LSyc3G-KYoRKb-KYoQbQ-LVzPVi-LNvACx-LNvzhr-LKZnVG-LNvwnP-LSxZzb-KYoHjU-LSxYcm-LVzEuz-LNvq84-LSxTBj-KYox31-LKZ6X9-Lu3GeU-LVzgW8-LSxDKw-KYzE28-KYoaXW-LtYLbu-LNqX1X-LNqUt2-LNqRfD-LVuYoR-LVuVLX-LKUuC9-KYiGeh-LKUqab-KYvpL2-LSsESS-LrrLn7/">Joe Brusky/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Social media has revolutionised how we communicate. In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/the-social-media-revolution-31890">this series</a>, we look at how it has changed the media, politics, health, education and the law.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In many countries around the world, Indigenous people make up only small percentages of the population. But at a time when <a href="http://www.briansolis.com/2011/05/this-just-in-news-no-longer-breaks-it-tweets/">“news no longer breaks, it tweets”</a> – with information travelling faster than the mainstream media can keep up – social media has become an increasingly powerful way to make our voices heard.</p>
<p>I’m currently in the United States, working on a special issue of the <a href="http://journal.acs.org.au/index.php/ajis/about">Australasian Journal of Information Systems</a> on Indigenous people and social media activism. While here, I’ve been able to closely follow one of the <a href="http://returntonow.net/2016/09/08/dakota-access-oil-pipeline-halted-largest-native-american-protest-history/">largest Native American protests</a> in modern US history.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140421/original/image-20161005-15909-tvuaq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140421/original/image-20161005-15909-tvuaq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140421/original/image-20161005-15909-tvuaq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140421/original/image-20161005-15909-tvuaq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140421/original/image-20161005-15909-tvuaq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140421/original/image-20161005-15909-tvuaq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140421/original/image-20161005-15909-tvuaq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Aboriginal flag flying in solidarity at the Sacred Stone Camp, North Dakota, USA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sacred Stone Camp, Facebook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Social media has helped the <a href="http://standingrock.org/">Standing Rock Sioux Tribe</a> attract national and global support in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/us/dakota-access-pipeline-protests.html">their fight</a> to protect <a href="http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/standing-rock-sioux-tribe-reasserts-dapl-destroyed-sacred-places/">sacred sites</a> and water supplies from a <a href="http://www.daplpipelinefacts.com/">1,900 kilometre pipeline</a>, expected to carry 470,000 barrels of oil a day just north of their reservation. (Follow the latest #NoDAPL developments on <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23nodapl&src=typd">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23nodapl">YouTube</a>, <a href="https://medium.com/tag/nodapl">Medium</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/nodapl/?hl=en">Instagram</a> or see the Aboriginal flag flying at the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CampOfTheSacredStone/">Sacred Stone Camp</a> via its Facebook page.)</p>
<p>Social media is also crucial to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sosblakaustralia">#SOSBLAKAUSTRALIA</a> – a campaign against the closure of remote Aboriginal communities that took off after <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/allanclarke/how-a-single-facebook-post-inspired-thousands-to-stand-up-fo?utm_term=.jwpk2gj2L#.niOmMxkMw">a single Facebook post</a> from the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-30/protest-against-forced-closure-aboriginal-communities/6431558">Bieundurry family</a>, residents of the remote Aboriginal community Wangkatjungka.</p>
<p>Within a week of that first Facebook post, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-30/protest-against-forced-closure-aboriginal-communities/6431558">thousands of people across Australia</a> were in the streets. Then came <a href="http://www.vice.com/read/we-spoke-to-western-australian-remote-aboriginal-communities-facing-closure">international media coverage</a> to the issue, as well as support from Indigenous groups <a href="https://intercontinentalcry.org/aboriginal-australian-communities-announce-a-global-call-to-action/">overseas</a>. </p>
<p>I’ve written about the #SOSBLAKAUSTRALIA campaign as an example of the nexus between political activism and Indigenous people’s use of social media in Australia for a chapter of a new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Negotiating-Digital-Citizenship-Control-Contest/dp/1783488891">Negotiating Digital Citizenship: Control, Contest and Culture</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"682482597394399236"}"></div></p>
<p>There are some challenges. While social media can provide significant <a href="https://theconversation.com/well-connected-indigenous-kids-keen-to-tap-new-ways-to-save-lives-30964">benefits</a> to Indigenous people, we have yet to fully understand the health impacts of constantly being connected and subject to violent and oppressive content. This is something <a href="https://croakey.org/for-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people-what-are-the-health-impacts-of-social-media/">my current research</a> is focused on. </p>
<p>Indigenous Australians have always been early adopters of technology, and information and communication technologies are no exception. I’d expect that to continue as new media platforms continue to emerge. As <a href="http://www.vividpublishing.com.au/makingtheconnection/Making_The_Connection_eTXT_screen.pdf">Jason Glanville notes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>what the longest continuous unbroken thread of human history points to is an extraordinary level of capacity and resilience, innovation and adaptability </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are too many strong Indigenous people on social media to list here. But if you want to tap into the latest in Indigenous Australian news, politics, research, culture and more, these deadly dozen will steer you towards more accounts to following.</p>
<h2>Dameyon Bonson</h2>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">About the Black Rainbow Living Well Foundation.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dameyon Bonson is the 2016 <a href="http://indigenousx.com.au/dr-yunupingu-award-for-human-rights/">Dr. Yunupingu award for Human Rights</a> recipient and founder of <a href="http://www.blackrainbow.org.au/home.html">Black Rainbow</a>, Australia’s peak suicide prevention group for Indigenous lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. He’s also the managing director of <a href="https://theindigenist.com">Indigenist</a> and an advocate of Indigenous genius, Indigeneity and wellbeing. </p>
<p><strong>Follow Dameyon on <a href="https://twitter.com/DameyonBonson">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dameyonbonson">LinkedIn</a>, or Black Rainbow on <a href="https://twitter.com/BlkRnBow">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BlackRainbowAustralia/">Facebook</a>.</strong></p>
<h2>Leesa Watego</h2>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Leesa Watego talking about Taking Ownership and Building Platforms.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.notquitecooked.com/p/about-me.html">Leesa Watego</a> started <a href="http://deadlybloggers.com">Deadly Bloggers</a> in 2009, a directory of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers posting on everything from business to pop culture. She is the director of <a href="https://twitter.com/iscariotmedia">Iscariot Media</a>, a niche media enterprise focusing on creative, online and educational projects. Leesa is an outstanding educator and deep thinker. </p>
<p><strong>Follow Leesa on <a href="https://twitter.com/leesawatego?lang=en">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/NotQuiteCooked/">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/leesawatego?&ab_channel=LeesaWatego">YouTube</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/leesawatego">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="http://www.notquitecooked.com/p/about-me.html">more</a>, or Deadly Bloggers on <a href="https://twitter.com/DeadlyBloggers">Twitter</a> or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/deadlybloggers/?fref=ts">Facebook</a>.</strong></p>
<h2>Joe Williams</h2>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A short film about champion boxer and former rugby league player Joe Williams’ fight with depression.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.joewilliams.com.au/speaking/">Joe Williams</a> works hard to inspire youth and individuals through motivational speaking workshops, run through his charity The Enemy Within. He is impassioned by the high rates of suicides in Indigenous communities – speaking and <a href="http://www.joewilliams.com.au/blog/">writing</a> powerfully about his own experience of surviving a suicide attempt – as well as the continued discrimination Indigenous people face in mainstream media.</p>
<p><strong>Follow Joe on <a href="https://twitter.com/joewilliams_tew">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-williams-51bb9b11a">LinkedIn</a> or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheEnemyWithinJoeWilliams/">Facebook</a>.</strong></p>
<h2>Amy McQuire</h2>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Amy McQuire leading a video panel on police brutality featuring Leon Petrou’s case.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://amy-mcquire.com/">Amy McQuire</a> is a journalist with <a href="http://www.989fm.com.au/">98.9FM</a> in Brisbane, the first Indigenous radio station in a capital city. Amy has a history of being vocal about the injustices faced by Indigenous people, including talking about hard issues like Indigenous deaths in custody and police brutality.</p>
<p><strong>Follow Amy on <a href="https://twitter.com/amymcquire">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-mcquire-b504932a">LinkedIn</a> or <a href="https://medium.com/@amymcquire/latest">Medium</a> and 98.9FM on <a href="https://twitter.com/989fmcountry">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/bima989fm/">Flickr</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/989fmcountry/">Facebook</a>.</strong></p>
<h2>Jack Latimore</h2>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Jack Latimore hosting a 2015 panel on New Media and Indigenous Reporting.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Jack Latimore is a <a href="http://caj.unimelb.edu.au/about-us/our-staff">researcher</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jack-latimore">journalist</a> with The Guardian Australia, writing on Indigenous affairs, politics, culture, tech, media and journalism. He is involved in the development of several projects aimed at improving the quality of Indigenous representation and participation in the mainstream media. </p>
<p><strong>Follow Jack on <a href="https://twitter.com/LatimoreJack">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://medium.com/@latimore">Medium</a> or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LatimoreJack/">Facebook</a>.</strong></p>
<h2>Euginia Flynn</h2>
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<p><a href="https://eugeniaflynn.wordpress.com">Euginia Flynn</a> is a blogger who writes from her viewpoint as an Aboriginal, Chinese, Muslim woman living on Kulin Country in Melbourne. Euginia is a thoughtful, poised and strong Indigenous woman.</p>
<p><strong>Follow Euginia on <a href="https://twitter.com/flyingenie1">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/blackthoughtslivehere/?fref=ts">Facebook</a>.</strong></p>
<h2>Bronwyn Fredericks</h2>
<p>We have some wonderful academics researching issues that are important to Indigenous Australia. Often referred to as “Blakademics”, many of them are enthusiastic social media users – such as <a href="https://www.cqu.edu.au/about-us/structure/executive/pro-vice-chancellors/indigenous-engagement">Professor Bronwyn Fredericks</a>, one of Australia’s few Indigenous Pro Vice-Chancellors. </p>
<p>Bronwyn promotes issues of health and wellbeing, race/racism, regional development and more. She is also a fantastic supporter of <a href="https://theconversation.com/laying-pathways-for-greater-success-in-education-for-indigenous-australians-54380">Indigenous students</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Follow Bronwyn on <a href="https://twitter.com/BronFredericks">Twitter</a> or <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/bronwyn-fredericks-304173b4">LinkedIn</a>.</strong></p>
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<h2>Summer May Finlay</h2>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Summer May Finlay on #JustJustice.</span></figcaption>
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<p><a href="http://summermayfinlay.blogspot.com.au">Summer May Finlay</a> is a public health professional, PhD candidate and an avid social media user. She is passionate about Australian politics, Aboriginal issues, health, music, art, films and blogs on a variety of other topics. </p>
<p><strong>Follow Summer on <a href="https://twitter.com/OnTopicAus">Twitter</a> or <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/summer-may-finlay-4946698a">LinkedIn</a>.</strong></p>
<h2>Lynore Geia</h2>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Lynore Geia speaking about Close the Gap 2016.</span></figcaption>
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<p><a href="https://research.jcu.edu.au/portfolio/lynore.geia/">Dr Lynore Geia</a> is an impressive advocate for Indigenous Health. She is the founder of <a href="https://croakey.org/about-ihmayday/">Indigenous Health May Day</a> – or <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ihmayday">#IHMayDay</a> – Tweetfests, which have been successful in gaining national support over three consecutive years and getting Indigenous health trending on Twitter.</p>
<p><strong>Follow Lynore on <a href="https://twitter.com/LynoreGeia">Twitter</a> or <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynore-geia-ab51a6bb">Linkedin</a>.</strong></p>
<h2>Celeste Liddle</h2>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Celeste Liddle at Communities in Control 2016.</span></figcaption>
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<p><a href="http://blackfeministranter.blogspot.com.au/p/about-black-feminist-ranter.html">Celeste Liddle</a> is the National Indigenous Organiser of the National Tertiary Education Union, freelance opinion writer and social commentator. She <a href="http://blackfeministranter.blogspot.com">blogs</a> at Rantings of an Aboriginal Feminist. Celeste is a strong voice on social media and an advocate for Indigenous-controlled media, as well as the value of having more Indigenous commentary <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/news-and-views/opinion/australia-could-learn-a-lot-if-it-actually-listened-to-indigenous-women-on-domestic-violence-20161005-grvp5w.html">in the mainstream media</a>. As <a href="http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=49969#.V_RD_DJh3v2">Celeste recently wrote</a>:</p>
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<p>Social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter… allowed us to connect and organise over vast distances. They also gave us platforms to discuss matters which had long been denied within the mainstream press.</p>
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<p><strong>Follow Celeste on <a href="https://twitter.com/Utopiana">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://au.linkedin.com/in/celeste-liddle-8a012529">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/blackfeministranter/">Facebook</a>.</strong></p>
<h2>Sandy O'Sullivan</h2>
<p><a href="http://sandyosullivan.blogspot.com">Dr Sandy O’Sullivan</a> is one of our wonderful academic bloggers. She is a great example of the way Indigenous people are making global connections. She is currently in the United States promoting Batchelor Institute’s <a href="http://www.batchelor.edu.au/centre-for-collaborative-first-nations-research/">Centre for Collaborative First Nations Research</a>.</p>
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<p><strong>Follow Sandy on <a href="https://twitter.com/sandyosullivan?lang=en">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://au.linkedin.com/in/sandy-o-sullivan-1a79724">LinkedIn</a> or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sandyosullivan66">Facebook</a> or the Centre for Collaborative First Nations’ Research on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/firstnationsresearch/">Facebook</a>.</strong></p>
<h2>Luke Pearson and IndigenousX</h2>
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<p>No list of Indigenous Australian excellence on social media would be complete without <a href="http://indigenousx.com.au/about/#.V_t9EpN97eQ">Luke Pearson</a> – founder of the highly influential Indigenous media organisation <a href="http://indigenousx.com.au/">IndigenousX</a>. Luke is also currently a senior digital producer for <a href="https://twitter.com/NITV">NITV</a>. </p>
<p>@IndigenousX started in 2012 as a rotating Twitter account, hosted by a different Indigenous Australian every week, and has since expanded into other social media.
Luke has a great sense of irony, which is often evident in his tweets (like the one above).</p>
<p><strong>Follow Luke on <a href="https://twitter.com/lukelpearson?lang=en">Twitter</a> or <a href="https://au.linkedin.com/in/lupearson">LinkedIn</a> and IndigenousX on <a href="https://twitter.com/IndigenousX">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Indigenousx/">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/indigenousx/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTK6oqOtAgPONFsdVyf6fDw?&ab_channel=IndigenousX">YouTube</a>.</strong></p>
<p>That’s just a snapshot of how Indigenous Australians are using social media to connect, debate and advocate to make a difference, as are so many other Indigenous people internationally. As <a href="http://www.vividpublishing.com.au/makingtheconnection/Making_The_Connection_eTXT_screen.pdf">Luke Pearson has said</a>:</p>
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<p>digital technologies, and in particular social media, can be a significant tool for connection, empowerment, education, employment, the ongoing struggle for social justice, and Reconciliation. In fact, whatever issue is being addressed (or is not, as the case may be), I believe the digital world can assist.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bronwyn Carlson receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Discovery (Indigenous) grant for a research project entitled, 'An Examination of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Help-Seeking Behaviours on Social Media' </span></em></p>Indigenous people make up small percentages of the population in many countries – but using social media, Indigenous voices can be heard worldwide. Here are a dozen deadly Australians worth following.Bronwyn Carlson, Associate Professor, Indigenous Studies, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/647142016-09-16T16:28:32Z2016-09-16T16:28:32ZWhy the Native American pipeline resistance in North Dakota is about climate justice<p>Over the past months, hundreds of indigenous persons and their allies have gathered near the crossing of the Missouri and Cannon Ball rivers in the ancestral territories of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Using nonviolent means, their goal is to stop the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) that would connect production fields in North Dakota to refineries in Illinois. Their primary fear is that an oil leak would threaten water quality for many members of the tribal community. </p>
<p>On Sept. 9, a federal judge <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/09/493280504/judge-rules-that-construction-can-proceed-on-dakota-access-pipeline">denied the tribe’s request</a> for an injunction to halt completion of the pipeline. But shortly after, federal officials said they would <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/joint-statement-department-justice-department-army-and-department-interior-regarding-standing">temporarily stop construction</a> pending further review.</p>
<p>As a scholar of indigenous studies and environmental justice, I’ve been following these developments closely. The pipeline’s construction has already destroyed some of the tribe’s <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/09/04/standing-rock-sioux-tribe-condemns-destruction-and-desecration-burial-grounds-energy">sacred burial grounds</a>. During protests, the protectors – as many gatherers prefer to be called – have endured violence, including being <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/4/dakota_access_pipeline_company_attacks_native">pepper-sprayed</a>, <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/04/492625850/dakota-access-pipeline-protests-in-north-dakota-turn-violent">attacked by dogs</a>, <a href="http://m.bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/state-pulls-relief-resources-from-swelling-dakota-access-pipeline-protest/article_8be06089-ab85-57e4-a8a4-fbe28143eefd.html">denied nourishment</a> and threatened by <a href="http://www.startribune.com/dakota-access-pipeline-owners-sue-north-dakota-protesters/390210751/">lawsuits</a>.</p>
<p>But despite the national attention to this case, one point has gone largely ignored in my view: Stopping DAPL is a matter of climate justice and decolonization for indigenous peoples. It may not always be apparent to people outside these communities, but standing up for water quality and heritage are intrinsically tied to these larger issues. </p>
<h2>Disproportionate suffering</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.mrfcj.org/principles-of-climate-justice/">Climate justice</a> – the idea that it is ethically wrong for some groups of people to suffer the detrimental effects of climate change more than others – is among the most significant moral issues today, referenced specifically in the landmark <a href="http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php">Paris Agreement</a> of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. </p>
<p>Climate scientists, through organizations such as the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> and <a href="http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/">U.S. Climate Assessment</a>, are finding more evidence of climate change from human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation. These destabilize the climate system, producing environmental conditions that disrupt human societies, through impacts such as rising sea levels, more severe droughts and warming freshwater.</p>
<p>The same climate science organizations also show that indigenous peoples are among the populations who will <a href="http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/indigenous-peoples">suffer more</a>, on average, than other communities from changing environmental conditions. Some are suffering right now.</p>
<p>Indigenous communities are among the first climate refugees, having to decide to relocate due to sea-level rise in the <a href="https://www.alaska.edu/uapress/browse/detail/index.xml?id=528">Arctic</a> and <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-013-0746-z">Gulf of Mexico</a>, as <a href="http://link.springer.com/journal/10584/120/3/page/1">well as other places</a> across the U.S. sphere. This is happening in <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ominous-story-of-syria-climate-refugees/">other parts of the world</a> too. </p>
<p>This is an injustice because, as indigenous scholar Dan Wildcat writes in <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Red_Alert.html?id=K0HFXHHx_B4C">“Red Alert!,”</a> the suffering is occurring “not as a result of something their Native lifeways produced, but because the most technologically advanced societies on the planet have built their modern lifestyles on a carbon energy foundation.”</p>
<p>DAPL, a 1,172-mile <a href="http://www.daplpipelinefacts.com/">connector</a> of the Bakken and Three Forks fossil fuel basins to major oil refining markets, maintains the carbon energy foundation Wildcat writes of. The protectors, meanwhile, are bringing public attention to the urgency of reducing a fossil fuel dependence. Because indigenous peoples suffer the effects of climate change disproportionately, continuing fossil fuel dependence will inflict more harms in years to come.</p>
<p>But there is more to this story, as climate change and U.S. colonialism against indigenous peoples are closely related.</p>
<p>While “colonialism” is not a term many nonindigenous persons typically use even in climate activism, it is the <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/formations-of-united-states-colonialism">academically rigorous</a> term for describing a significant part of the political relationship between the U.S. and indigenous peoples. It also sheds important light on indigenous understanding of what climate justice really means and what solutions are required. </p>
<h2>History of exploitation</h2>
<p>Put simply, colonialism refers to a form of domination that involves at least one society seeking to exploit some set of benefits they believe to be found in the territories of one or more other indigenous societies already living there. These benefits can range from farm land and precious minerals to labor. </p>
<p>Exploitation can occur through tactics including military invasion, coercion, slavery, policing and geographic removal of indigenous peoples. <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/19284">Sexual and gender violence</a> are integral to undermining indigenous leadership customs, many of which were tied to nonpatriarchal gender systems that empowered women and nonbinary genders. </p>
<p>U.S. colonialism is about continued U.S. control over how indigenous peoples govern themselves internally and their territories as Tribal Nations. The U.S. Congress officially has <a href="https://ais.arizona.edu/uneven-ground-american-indian-sovereignty-and-federal-law">plenary (absolute) power</a> over tribes. The U.S. considers indigenous jurisdictions, including reservations, as U.S. federal land held in trust for tribes. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The view of the North Dakota Access Pipeline running between farms about a one-and-a-half hour drive from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/diversey/29357938502/in/photolist-LKZ2cA-M2KHMh-M5ntFB-M2JwwU-M5m4QH-M2HWC1-LKPBx9-M9nT6d-M5jUm4-M9mQXh-Mcv15a-M2FGtU-Lf7DbE-LKLCiJ-M2E6so-LJg7iu-LrrLn7">diversey/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>While the U.S. federal government is required to consult tribes before it undertakes action that will affect tribal well-being, a brief glance at history reveals it is most often <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiVqKH3m43PAhVHjiwKHVaMALQQFggsMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.state.gov%2Fdocuments%2Forganization%2F136740.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHMUcTYy8qu9z4-rviOrFKFaf8_2A&sig2=Q_o34JsagBDko7D3r80VOg">a policy </a> that legitimizes federal infringement. Indeed, the U.S. <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/23/honor-treaties-un-human-rights-chiefs-message-150996">has not fulfilled</a> all of its treaty responsibilities to tribes, especially when treaty obligations interfere with the economic interests of settlers.</p>
<p>The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe at the center of this current protest has already suffered from this practice. Until U.S. mining interests were at stake, it retained sovereignty over the sacred Black Hills and parts of the Missouri River and certain off reservation hunting rights in the <a href="http://standingrock.org/history/">Treaty of Ft. Laramie of 1868.</a> But then in 1877, U.S. Congress, without tribal consent, passed an act removing the Black Hills from Standing Rock’s jurisdiction, curtailing tribal members’ capacity to honor the sacred places of the Black Hills. </p>
<p>U.S. colonialism, then, serves to pave the way for the expansion of extractive industries which scientists have now identified as contributors to human-caused climate change. Damming and deforestation of indigenous territories enable mining and industrial agriculture; pipelines, roads and refineries create dependence on fossil fuels for energy. </p>
<p>Colonial exploitation of indigenous lands through these industries has already inflicted <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/14077319?selectedversion=NBD12355770">immediate harms</a> on indigenous peoples, from water and air pollution to destruction of sacred sites. Many of these environmental harms can be compared to climate change, as land-use change alters land temperatures, soil composition and hydrology. Herein lies a pattern of harms arising from colonialism. </p>
<h2>Vicious pattern</h2>
<p>But not all of the impacts of carbon-intensive industries are felt immediately. Climate change impacts occur in greater force some years later, as the effects of changing environmental conditions are felt more and more, all of which is made worse by U.S. colonialism. </p>
<p>Tribes are susceptible to loss of cultural, spiritual and economic relations to species such as <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/moose-are-dying-in-horrible-ways-due-to-climate-change">moose</a> or <a href="http://www.critfc.org/fish-and-watersheds/climate/climate-change-strategies/">salmon</a> as habitats change occur faster because their reservations are too small or fragmented to allow indigenous communities to follow the species’ movements to more suitable ecosystems. U.S. treaties are supposed to <a href="http://treatyrightsatrisk.org/">guarantee continued</a> tribal access to the species even when they change location or their habitats are threatened by environmental stressors, but it’s not clear the U.S. will honor these treaties in this way. </p>
<p>When it comes to indigenous climate refugees, any decision to relocate is made particularly difficult by U.S. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378011001518">domination over decision-making</a> and <a href="http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Kivalina">discriminatory bureaucratic hurdles</a>. </p>
<p>Moreover, <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399074">climate change also opens up more indigenous territories</a>, such as in the Arctic, to pressure from colonial exploitation, as thawing snow and ice open access to resources, such as oil and other hydrocarbons, that were previously hard to get to. </p>
<p>This further oil exploration will likely lead to the same detrimental effects we’ve already seen. The workers camps, or “man camps,” created to support drilling and mining in regions like the Bakken, introduce more sexual and gender <a href="https://maryturck.com/2016/06/21/the-beginning-and-end-of-rape/">violence</a> through increases in the trafficking of indigenous women and girls. Of course, some of the sites of violence are the very same North Dakota fracking fields that seek to send fuel down the DAPL. </p>
<p>Stopping DAPL, then, is about stopping a vicious pattern of U.S. colonialism that inflicts immediate environmental harms and <a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/55c251dfe4b0ad74ccf25537/t/579ff3375016e13b82ad298b/1470100279279/Is_it_Colonial_Deja_Vu_Indigenous_People+%282%29.pdf">future climate change impacts on indigenous peoples</a>. For indigenous peoples, then, <a href="http://decolonization.org/index.php/des/article/view/18630">decolonization is not a metaphor</a>. </p>
<h2>Broader movement</h2>
<p>It’s worth noting the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is not alone. A major supporter of stopping DAPL is the <a href="http://www.lummi-nsn.org/">Lummi Nation</a>, which has taken action to block the establishment of a coal shipment terminal and train railway near its treaty-protected sacred area of Xwe’chi’eXen in Washington state. The Lummi is part of a group of tribes that have documented the U.S. negligence in honoring its treaty responsibility to refrain from economic and consumptive activities that destroy the salmon habitat that the Lummi and other tribes in the region depend on. </p>
<p>The initiative, <a href="http://treatyrightsatrisk.org/">Treaty Rights at Risk,</a> suggests the vulnerability of salmon habitat to climate change is part of a larger story of environmental damage done by U.S. dams, agriculture, and other land-use practices. </p>
<p>Similarly, for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, shifting plant and animal habitats from climate change combined with loss of jurisdiction over land, both due to U.S. colonialism, will make it harder for tribal members to maintain relationships with those plants and animals into the future. </p>
<p>So as the protests and legal battles over the construction of the pipeline continue, we need to realize that protection of sacred sites and worries over contaminated water supplies are simultaneously concerns about climate justice and its relation to U.S. colonialism. Nonindigenous environmentalists are only allies if they work broadly toward decolonization, instead of aligning with indigenous peoples only when a particular issue, such as opposition to one pipeline, seems to match their interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyle Whyte does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What is the months-long North Dakota Access Pipeline protest really about? A Native American scholar connects the dots to environmental justice and the legacy of U.S. colonialism.Kyle Whyte, Timnick Chair in the Humanities / Associate Professor of Philosophy and Community Sustainability, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.