USA

The incoming Trump administration is likely to see the greatest revival of environmentalism as a confrontational, grassroots, sometimes radical movement since at least 1970, when more than a million people took part in the first Earth Day.

A pipeline leak has spilled tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil into a North Dakota creek roughly two and a half hours from Cannon Ball, where protesters are camped out in opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline.

Members of the Standing Rock Sioux and other tribes, as well as environmentalists from around the country, have fought the pipeline project on the grounds that it crosses beneath a lake that provides drinking water to native Americans. They say the route beneath Lake Oahe puts the water source in jeopardy and would destroy sacred land.

I did a column about the Standing Rock Sioux’s stand against the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) in October. On Sunday (Dec. 4) news broke that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will not allow the pipeline to be built on its current route near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

It’s a huge victory for the water protectors — the term Standing Rock activists used and what I will call them in this column. But it took months of action and sacrifice to get to this point.

Back in October, not much media coverage was given to this environmental and Indigenous rights issue.   

Rally targeted banks protesters say will benefit from the pipeline

Protesters once again marched through downtown Vancouver on Thursday night, carrying signs and chanting anti-pipeline sentiments.

While it's a scene familiar to the west coast, the rally didn't have a local target — instead, it was meant as a symbol of solidarity for the Standing Rock demonstrators in North Dakota.

Opponents of the oil and gas industry's expansion scored a major victory Sunday as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers halted construction of the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's territory.