Environmental activism is really dangerous, exposing activists to all kinds of threats, which sometimes reach killing. 2015, for example, was the deadliest year in the history of environmental activism. According to a UK-based watchdog Global Witness, more than 185 environmental activists were killed. Activism needs no feeling of protection to happen when it’s real, and the example of North Dakota is enough to prove that.
After protesting for 8 months, hundreds of tribes from North Dakota, Oregon, and other nearby regions are now being charged with some accusations, and will be going to their first trial on Monday.
Tear gas, pepper spray, and water cannons used against protesters did not keep them from continuing their activism. Many of them were also injured during clashes with construction site security.
While the Police accused protesters of possessing pipe bombs, they announced later that the objects were “chanunpas,” or peace pipes. LA reports that repeated police claims that protesters carried bows and arrows were later retracted, and recently in court papers officials who had charged a 37-year-old Lakota woman with attempted murder in a demonstration quietly dropped any mention of those charges, reducing them to felony possession of a firearm.
Why is the Pipeline a threat?
The 1,172-mile-long (1,886 km) underground oil pipeline project, poses serious negative impacts on the environment, and causes hundreds of Native Americans to drink polluted water.
The project costs $3.78 billion, and on November 26, 2016, the project was reported to be 87% completed. But will the route route beginning in the Bakken oil fields in northwest North Dakota and traveling in a more or less straight line south-east, through South Dakota and Iowa, and ending at the oil tank farm near Patoka, Illinois, be complete on the 1st of January, 2017, as planned, knowing that enthusiastic activists are still protesting against it, and making history?…
