by Abby Zimet, staff writer
Common Dreams, Nov. 8, 2014

With a newly elected Congress gearing up to pass Keystone, the inspiring story of the Unist'ot'en Camp, an indigenous resistance community established in northwest Canada to protect sovereign Wet'suwet'en territory and blockade up to 10 additional proposed pipelines aimed at expanding Alberta Tar Sands operations. The Uni’stot’en Clan, which has families living in cabins and traditional structures in the direct pathway of the Northern Gateway and Pacific Trails fracking lines, argues that "since time immemorial" they have governed Wet’suwet’en lands, which thus remain unceded and not subject to Canadian law "or other impositions of colonial occupation" - an argument that has been sustained in court cases, and bolstered by the camp's recent peaceable ejection of a drilling crew..

Camp leaders note that delays caused by their and other grassroots blockades are said to be costing Kinder Morgan and other companies up to $88 million a month, one reason the companies have filed multi-million suits against camp leaders that are still pending. But with Wet’suwet’en law requiring consent from the traditional indigenous governments in territories where indigenous people probably outnumber "settler people," opponents appear to have the law on their side. "Our Chiefs have said no to these projects, and no means no," says Freda Huson, Unist’ot’en Clan member and camp spokesperson. "You can't continue to bulldoze over our people. Our lands. Our final say."

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2014/11/08/way-warrior-how-stop-pipeline

Much success to them.

If the rest of the continents' peoples are lucky, they'll learn.