Six years later, the International Treaty to Protect the Sacred against Keystone XL and tar sands is strong and growing. Watch as more Indigenous Nations sign the treaty in a historic show of unity in South Dakota.
Posted by 350.org on Tuesday, January 15, 2019

350.org on Facebook: 'The International Treaty to Protect the Sacred against Keystone XL and tar sands is strong and growing'

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Native Sun News Today: Pipeline victories celebrated on treaty anniversary

Friday, January 25, 2019

Water protectors give thanks for progress to halt pipelines

By Talli Nauman
Native Sun News Today Contributing Editor
nativesunnews.today

PICKSTOWN – Water protectors from far and wide gathered here in an all-day event on January 15 to celebrate and foster the 6-year-old International Treaty to Protect the Sacred from Tar Sands Projects.

“We do not own this land. We are Mother Earth’s children. We must stand together to protect her,” pronounced tribal elder Duane Hollow Horn Bear, one of a host of speakers at the occasion, which took place at the Fort Randall Casino in the Yankton Sioux homelands.

On the anniversary of the first signatures on the 2013 treaty, participants in the wopida (Dakota for thanks) included representatives of the Oceti Sakowin tribes, the Ponca, Pawnee, and First Nations of Canada, treaty councils, grassroots traditional societies, environmental non-profits, non-native landowners, ranchers and farmers of South Dakota, such as members of Dakota Rural Action, as well as of Nebraska, among them members of the Bold Alliance and the Nebraska Easement Action Team, or NEAT.

With Beloved Relatives, giving Wopida Tanka for the Protect the Sacred Gathering, January 23-25, 2013, Ihanktowan...
Posted by Phil Lane Jr on Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Phil Lane Jr on Facebook: 'This International Treaty continues to grow in unprecedented, unified, action to Protect and Restore the Sacred'

The Lake Andes-based Brave Heart Society “did an amazing job with preparations and hosting,” said water protector Cindy Myers. She lauded Ihanktonwan Treaty Committee Chair Faith Spotted Eagle for organizing the commemoration.

The ongoing treaty-adhesion process revived an historic Cowboy and Indian Alliance. It sparked the subsequent NOKXL Dakota Alliance. Some of the participants have been fighting KXL and the source of its proposed slurry, the Canadian tar sands, for the last decade.

In the wake of the unification consolidated during the Standing Rock Sioux uprising against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the KXL Pipeline remains a “ghost pipeline,” sponsors of the ceremonies commented.

They recalled the Reject and Protect encampment they led at the National Mall, featuring horseback riders who took the message of “no pipelines” to the White House.

Treaty alliance adherents have forged a movement on many fronts and in various locations. They represent frontline communities fighting the intrusion of tar-sands pipelines, uranium and fracking developments.

Several tribes and environmental groups obtained a reprieve from KXL construction in federal court, in November 2018, when Montana U.S. District Judge Brian Morris halted it in agreement with plaintiffs’ arguments that a 2014 environmental assessment fell short of National Environmental Policy Act and other regulatory standards.