There have been a lot of times where I have been truly disheartened by America’s actions and the Native American protest of the oil pipeline in North Dakota has been no different. Of all the controversy and opinion surrounding it, I feel that in this day and age there is an important thing we can learn from the Native Americans here that our country as a whole has yet to figure out.
“Native Americans throughout history have been the stewards of the land and we have been warning mainstream America about the destruction that they are doing and that it is not going to last,” Tribal Chairman David Archambault II of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe told ABC News. "We have to protect the water. We have to protect the earth from destruction.”
The Dakota Access Pipeline currently being constructed will run through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois. However, it disrupts Native land and sacred burial sites for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who resides in the area and brings about concerns of water contamination. Naturally the tribe is not willing to accept this fate and has taken to protesting the construction supported by 100 other tribes.
Unfortunately, the protest turned violent as it was reported that private security released pepper spray and pit bulls onto men, women, and children after claiming that several of them were injured by the protesters which has only led to increased tensions among the Native American tribes and the Dakota Access Pipeline workers.
This nation was more or less built on the fact that Native Americans were stripped of their land and roughly exterminated from the country. They have been pushed onto reservations and given a shorthand when it comes to relations with the government.
Have the Native Americans not been pushed around for long enough? The Dakota Access Pipeline is said to be able to create hundreds of jobs for people in the area but at what cost to the people in the area and the environment itself?
The problem is part of a larger issue, the issue of overuse of land development. It is one that affects all of us, not just on the land in North Dakota, but everywhere. When it starts to hurt the lives of a group of people directly, such as the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, it becomes an issue of not only environment but human rights.
A lot of Native American tradition is tied to the importance of the land but it’s something everyone should take to heart in order to make the world better.
According to the United Nations Chair of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the indigenous people see the land as a sacred ground. It is a living entity that all people are tied to as the environment has a direct impact on our lives and our futures.
“What we are concerned about is our future generations, our youth, and what we do today is going to impact them,” Archambalt said.
This is one of so many large construction projects that deplete the environment and people who hold it near to their hearts. If people continue to destroy this world in such a way, there will be nothing left of it for our future, or for future generations.
