Thing is, if you follow aboriginal politics, this isn’t unexpected, and in fact, would assume this particular scenario to be the case in the pipelines plans already.
The Northern Sioux, unlike some others though, have *never* surveyed the land. When people actively hate you, Legal protections < people not knowing what to destroy.
Read: they refused to survey even before it was declared private land (something which really doesn’t stop them, btw), because this was an expected outcome.
If they HAD previously surveyed the land, it’s a damn good guess that the original pipeline plans would’ve already been on track to destroy their cultural heritage, and honestly, that’s what me and many others assumed was already the case.
When I heard they hadn’t surveyed because of private land, I thought that meant they had an survey submitted that they couldn’t get legal protections for because of the private land concern. Guess they were smarter than me.
There are many aboriginal peoples who have refused to survey or list their cultural sites for the same reason. If you ever had a reason to come across the relevant law, you may remember that some provinces/states have laws or considered laws that would make aboriginal cultural sites, once given legal protection, secret, even to owners, (where applicable). And then denied permits can be given other valid reasons, like ‘damages the water supply’, or occasionally have to let loose that there are cultural sites on the land.
(Astute readers will note that this is similar to how permits are denied for forgotten graveyards or other such not-really-secret sites)
Among things like this, it is also quite the common anti-protester tactic to set fire to cultural sites to distract protesters from construction zones.
(If you’ve read about aboriginal protest tactics before and heard about ‘fire groups’/’fire squads’/etc., those folks are there to hit up nearby cultural sites, check that they’re not on fire, and put them out if still small. They are not, as some radio hosts have insisted, there to brandish firearms)
TL;DR: If you were horrified at humanity before…
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