By KimJohnson
7 years ago

Water is Life

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Mni Wakan - Lakota for Water is Sacred.
Mni Wiconi - Water is Life.

I would like to post some of my favorite water pictures to remember that one year ago, we began our struggle against clean water in our country. Being half Nez Perce Native American we were called upon by the Lakota in North Dakota to come together and stand against major oil. This was the first time in history that all of the Native American Tribes came together, along with all nationalities and walks of life to protect our water.

The Dakota Access Pipeline protests, also known by the hashtag #nodapl, are grassroots movements that began in early 2016 in reaction to the approved construction of Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access Pipeline in the northern United States. The pipeline was projected to run from the Bakken oil fields in western North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing beneath the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, as well as under part of Lake Oahe near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Many in the Standing Rock tribe consider the pipeline and its intended crossing of the Missouri River to constitute a threat to the region's clean water and to ancient burial grounds. In April, Standing Rock Sioux elder LaDonna Brave Bull Allard established a camp as a center for cultural preservation and spiritual resistance to the pipeline; over the summer the camp grew to thousands of people.

We are now in a global struggle for what is increasingly seen as a commodity more precious than gold or oil – water. Hidden behind the current scramble for land is a world-wide struggle for control over water. The value is not in land. The real value is in water. The wars of the world are now being carried out over water.

Water is Life, protect it.

More images

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7 years
LiaF7 Great text and even greater photos. Loved it.
7 years
7 years
TeriRoss I wish I could have been there!!! Wouldn't it be amazing if we could actually take back our country? What a wonderful country this would be if the settlers had chosen to live among the Natives and adopted our ways.
7 years
7 years
KimJohnson Thanks @Liaf7 ! And @TeriRoss No doubt, sighs, its sad.
7 years