Winona LaDuke ‘Honor the Earth to Ride Pipeline’

Waatebagaa-Giizis (Leaves Changing Moon) 1, 2013

By Winona LaDuke

Dear Friends,

This fall, I am going to stand up against big oil, and I need your help. I am going to join with my brothers and sisters to say no to tar sands oil, no to dirty coal and fracking, and yes to a future which will nourish us. Please join us – we need your support.

This fall, I am inviting you to join us in this battle, which we are sure is the struggle to protect our Mother Earth, keep fossil fuels in the ground, and renew our covenant with both the Creator, and the generations to come. We are going to work very hard this year :

1. To oppose the expansion of tar sands and fracking imports (in particular
the Enbridge Pipelines in Minnesota)

2. To support the Lakota nation in it’s opposition to the KXL pipeline, which crosses their territory.

This is my invitation to you. My sister and I, joined by friends, are going to ride our horses along the Enbridge Pipeline route, as it passes through our l855 treaty area, as it passes our precious lakes rivers, wetlands, and towns – which are already burdened by high rates of cancer related to pesticides and oil. We are going to pray with our horses, and send that oil back to Canada and North Dakota in our prayers, and we are going to pray for safety.

We are going to talk to people along the way who will want to have their voices heard. We are going to have a spiritual ride to send that power back, and we are going to have an educational moment to inform landowners and towns, as well as our tribal nations, as to the actual possible impact of this pipeline. We will ride at the end of September, just a few of us, but we will have more who will support us.

At the same time, our brothers and sisters of the Lakota Nation will ride their horses in the land not yet tarnished by a pipeline – that is Lakota territory. This is a prairie once full of 250 species of grass and 50 million buffalo. It does not need a tar sands pipeline. And the people who live in the north near the Athabascan River, do not want to see more mining done.

There will be around 5 of us riding here in Anishinaabe Akiing, but the Lakota people are a horse culture, and will be riding together with 20 or more. Their ride will span 200 miles – against the flow of dirty tar sands oil to their land.

They will ride from the Rosebud to the Cheyenne River. They will ride between two
proposed man camps, because they do not want the camps to threaten their women and children, and they do not want the oil. We wish to support them, and
we wish to bring our prayers to the land.

We will ride two times. And we will oppose the devastation that the proposed Enbridge Sandpiper pipeline would cause in our home community of White Earth. We will be working in coordination with partner organizations and allies to launch a media campaign and public education effort against the Alberta Clipper expansion and the Sandpiper pipelines. We will also join our Lakota relatives to ride in the west.

Our plan is to pair our media work with both the rental of two billboards on Highway 2 and I-35, and a speaking tour through our northern communities, which will feature impacted peoples from the Kalamazoo spill and community leaders from our land. This will draw attention to the Enbridge and Sandpiper proposed expansions in northern Minnesota.

We will consider a similar billboard in South Dakota regarding the Keystone XL pipeline.

We will continue our grassroots organizing and advocacy around the issues that disturb our Mother Earth. Please consider joining us. The terrain is large and our hearts and courage are in this struggle. But we need your help. This work needs funding.

So, I am asking you to consider a donation, to sponsor these rides, and support our media and educational work. I am asking you to consider pledging per-mile that I ride, and doing that with our Paypal online, or mail a check to the address listed on our website. We need your support.

Please help by donating to Honor the Earth today

https://www.honorearth.org/donate