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Judge Denies Motion to Halt Dakota Access Pipeline as 4-Day Protest Begins in DC
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has rejected the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe's request to halt the last section of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
As they have before, the tribe argued the pipeline's construction would lead to the desecration of their sacred lands and water. Since it would be built under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, the tribe argued it would interfere with their religious practices.
But Judge Boasberg dismissed those claims.
Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the construction of the pipeline, had already "modified the pipeline work space and route more than a hundred times in response to cultural surveys and tribes' concerns regarding historic and cultural resources," Boasberg wrote, as reported by RT, adding that rerouting the pipeline "would be more costly and complicated than it would have been months or years ago."
This ruling means the $3.8 billion, 1,170-mile pipeline is slated to be finished.
"It is simply unacceptable that the government is allowing Energy Transfer Partners to build this pipeline through our sacred lands. The water the pipeline threatens supplies the Lakota and more than 17 million other people downstream," said Chase Iron Eyes, Lakota People's Law Project lead counsel in a statement, on the decision.
"The latest court ruling against my people is unjust and unacceptable. But I am here to tell you, this fight is not over and we will not surrender. Several steps remain in the legal process," he continued.
"On March 10, Native Nations and water protectors from around the country will converge in Washington, DC to let the president, Judge Boasberg and the army know that they are accomplices to a dangerous, criminal corporation. If there is a spill, they will have oil and blood on their hands and we will not let them forget it."
That demonstration in Washington began Tuesday, with tribal members and supporters planning to camp each day on the National Mall, set to bring along teepees, light a ceremonial fire and hold cultural workshops. In the four days of protest, Indigenous leaders also plan to lobby lawmakers to protect tribal rights.
The protest will culminate in a two-mile march from the Army Corps of Engineers office to the White House, where a rally is scheduled for Friday.
Reposted with permission from our media associate teleSUR.
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By Kate Martyr
Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest last month jumped to the highest level since records began in 2015, according to government data.
A total of 563 square kilometers (217.38 square miles) of the world's largest rainforest was destroyed in November, 103% more than in the same month last year, according to Brazil's space research agency.
From January to November this year an area almost the size of the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico was destroyed — an 83% overall increase in destruction when compared with the same period last year.
The figures were released on Friday by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and collected through the DETER database, which uses satellite images to monitor forest fires, forest destruction and other developments affecting the rainforest.
What's Behind the Rise?
Overall, deforestation in 2019 has jumped 30% compared to last year — 9,762 square kilometers (approximately 3769 square miles) have been destroyed, despite deforestation usually slowing during November and December.
Environmental groups, researchers and activists blamed the policies of Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro for the increase.
They say that Bolosonaro's calls for the Amazon to be developed and his weakening support for Ibama, the government's environmental agency, have led to loggers and ranchers feeling safer and braver in destroying the expansive rainforest.
His government hit back at these claims, pointing out that previous governments also cut budgets to environment agencies such as Ibama.
The report comes as Brazil came to loggerheads with the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) over climate goals during the UN climate conference in Madrid.
AOSIS blasted Brazil, among other nations, for "a lack of ambition that also undermines ours."
Last month, a group of Brazilian lawyers called for Bolsonaro to be investigated by the International Criminal Court over his environmental policies.
Reposted with permission from DW.
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The Carolina parakeet, the only parrot species native to the U.S., went extinct in 1918 when the last bird died at the Cincinnati Zoo. Now, a little more than 100 years later, researchers have determined that humans were entirely to blame.
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By Tara Lohan
In 2017 the Thomas fire raged through 281,893 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, California, leaving in its wake a blackened expanse of land, burned vegetation, and more than 1,000 destroyed buildings.