Most notably remembered by the Water Protectors who dangled from the rafters at the January 1 Vikings game with their “Divest #NoDAPL” banner featuring the U.S Bank logo, the DeFund DAPL initiative has been calling on all individuals who have financial relationships with one of the major banks investing in the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) to divest their funds, transfer them to alternative banks and contact their bank’s CEO via letter.
The $3.8 million, 1,172-mile pipeline, if completed, is set to transport 500,000 barrels of crude oil every day, cutting through 38 miles of territory originally sanctioned to the Native American community per the 1851 Federal Treaty signed in Fort Laramie. The fears of Water Protectors of the threat this pipeline poses to the human right to water and the accessibility of clean and safe water sources for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and millions of others have been inflamed further in light of the recent Canadian pipeline leak of 52,834 gallons of oil into indigenous land.
Since April 2016, Native leaders and their families, along with their Water Protector allies, have maintained unarmed opposition at the site of the new pipeline route. In November, more than 400 environmental and human rights organizations sent a letter to the executives of the 17 prominent financial institutions backing DAPL, demanding that they withdraw lines of credit for the project. In early December, our Native Brothers and Sisters were joined by thousands of US Army veterans who stood in solidarity with the Native Water Protectors as human shields protecting all Americans’ right to clean water.
The achievements of the DeFund DAPL effort, in particular, shows the leverage that can be gained from the divestment strategy’s financial strains on the project. On January 3, 2017, it was announced that the #DeFundDAPL campaign divested $40 million from the Dakota Access Pipeline, an incredible increase from the 28.2 million dollar divestment recorded in late December 2016. According to the Defund DAPL initiative’s withdrawal tracker, this number currently surpasses 53 million dollars.
Public pressure is successfully mounting against DAPL overseas. Nordea, one of the largest European banks, has plans to sell off all its holdings in Energy Transfer Partners, Energy Transfer Equity, Sunoco Logistics, and Dakota Access LLC. if these companies do not guarantee that the project avoids the Standing Rock Sioux’s Native lands. The Norwegian firm, Odin Fund Management, has already sold off $23.8 million in holdings. DNB has sold $3 million in investments (while maintaining over 400 million dollars in line of credit), but amidst growing pressure to defund the project, DNB announced plans to investigate the social and environmental impact of DAPL and subsequently determine its future financing of the pipeline.
California Assemblyman Ash Kalra of District 27 proposed Assembly Bill 20, which would require the state’s two public employee pension funds to divest from investments in DAPL-related companies. A spokesman of CalPERS has confirmed that these pension funds own approximately 1.1 million shares of Energy Transfer Partners.
In December 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux tribal leaders requested to meet with the 17 financial institutions directly funding DAPL. While four banks declined (BayernLB, BNP Paribas, Mizuho Bank, and Suntrust) and six others did not respond (Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, BBVA Compass, ICBC, Intesa Sanpaolo, Natixis, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation), seven institutions have met or agreed to meet with the Tribe (Citi, Crédit Agricole, DNB, ING, Société Générale, TD, and Wells Fargo), demonstrating the pressure the people as consumers have been able to put on these banks through divesting their dollars.
Most recently, however, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum has agreed to start taking down the “Backwater Bridge Blockade,” which has been dangerously blocking emergency or commercial vehicles from passing on Highway 1806 for months, and decided to decrease the number of National Guards overlooking the camp and encourage local law enforcement to de-escalate and not have any lethal or non-lethal weapons at hand.
The successes, thus far, of our Native Brothers and Sisters and Water Protectors nationally demonstrate the power of The People, in organized, peaceful and collective efforts, to stand up to some of the most influential power-players in contemporary politics.
