ECO EVOLUTION
with Michael Gosney

With indigenous leader Chief Phil Lane Jr. and Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler

In January 2013, at the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, an historical event was held:  the Gathering to Protect the Sacred from Tar Sands Projects.  There, representatives of Native Americans, Canadian First Nations, Indigenous Nations and their allies, including farmers and ranchers, business and environmental leaders, leading treaty and environmental lawyers, news media, and other concerned citizens gathered for the signing of the International Treaty to Protect the Sacred from Tar Sands Projects. This treaty brings many associated parties into solidarity to block the Keystone XL TransCanada Pipeline from destroying hundreds of vital natural ecologies, including many designated as historical sacred grounds, as well as unleashing the dirtiest, most polluting oil extraction industry in history that would have a devastating impact on not only Canadian and American environments, but on the lives of countless species, including humans, worldwide. This conversation with Chief Phil Lane Jr., an indigenous leader and founder of the Four Worlds International Institute, and Rex Weyler, writer, activist, and co-founder of Greenpeace, reveals the grave prospects of the Keystone Pipeline projects, and the growing power of the Protect the Sacred campaign as it unites Indigenous Peoples against this misguided assault by the oil industry and the Canadian government on our planet and our humanity. Chief Lane and Rex presented a landmark document at the gathering, “The Critical State of Our Mother Earth” which presents a sobering assessment of our situation and a call for “unprecedented unified action” to change the path we are taking as a culture.

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