How Native Activists Are Transforming Climate Action

Indigenous leaders transform pipeline resistance with a creative mix of tradition and novel tactics.

When representatives of 23 tribal nations packed the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission chambers on January 7, they came to defend a site their peoples have held sacred for over 3,000 years. The Pipestone National Monument is full of catlinite, a material tribes believe was gifted to them by White Buffalo Calf Woman, a cultural prophet and holy woman. The stone is used to make ritual pipes, and its red coloring represents the blood of Indigenous people. None of this protected the monument from the threat of an oil pipeline. 

The monument was created in 1937 to shield the quarries from development. Roughly a decade later, the Great Lakes Pipeline Company installed an oil pipeline within its borders. Great Lakes and then Magellan Midstream Partners operated it until the Biden administration shut it down in 2022 to protect the site. However, since then, Magellan, now a subsidiary of OneOK Inc., has been pushing to revive the pipeline. When the Public Utility Commission granted the company a permit to proceed in September 2024, it seemed they had finally gotten their way. 

At the time, Yankton Sioux leader Faith Spotted Eagle addressed the commission fresh from a ceremony that honored the Carlisle Indian School children. "I just offered spirit food to the Carlisle young people," she testified at the September hearing, "and five minutes later, I'm on this call, which is again protesting a violation of our people. It's not a coincidence. It's a spiritual happening that will give strength to our request."

Her words ultimately prevailed. In January, the commission rescinded the pipeline permit, requiring comprehensive cultural surveys in consultation with the tribal nations affiliated with the territory and mandating that tribal voices be centered in future decision-making.

The comments of one commissioner, Hwikwon Ham, who voted for the permit last year, highlighted the impact of Indigenous organizing on the decision. “When they spoke in unison voice, we have to pay additional attention beyond our typical environmental review and route permit process," he said.

Since that January hearing, the Red Stone Movement, as Indigenous pipestone defenders call themselves, has continued to meet and do what is necessary to protect their sacred site. The Pipestone battle is more than a localized dispute—it represents a broader Indigenous-led movement challenging fossil fuel infrastructure through strategic resistance that combines legal expertise, cultural knowledge, and spiritual resilience. By uniting tribal nations in a coordinated effort, Indigenous leaders are transforming what seemed routine infrastructure decisions into powerful assertions of tribal sovereignty and environmental protection.

Toxic waters and watchful eyes

In the summer of 2021, Dawn Goodwin felt the earth tremble—a visceral warning of the industrial violence unfolding nearby. She and other Indigenous water protectors had set up Camp Firelight in the Mississippi River Valley of northern Minnesota to monitor the construction of the Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline and document leaks and other violations of environmental law.

One morning, a friend of Goodwin’s noticed workers with hoses moving under darkness near a timber bridge along the Mississippi River. What seemed like standard dewatering revealed something far more insidious—toxic chemicals bubbling through wetlands in what pipeline workers clinically call a "frac-out." Goodwin understood this was more than an environmental incident. "Our water is connected to our culture," she explained. "That's our first medicine. We were born from water."

The chemical leak at Camp Firelight became the catalyst for Waadookawaad Amikwag, an Indigenous water protector group that translates to “those who help beaver.” The indigenous-led monitoring network transformed how environmental violations are documented. Using a combination of drone surveillance, traditional ecological knowledge, and meticulous ground-level observation, the group kept tabs on an industry that has operated with impunity. Their documentation tracked what state agencies had overlooked: 28 frac-out cases and four critical aquifer breaches, all before a single drop of oil flowed through the pipeline.

Where state environmental agencies saw isolated incidents, Waadookawaad Amikwag saw interconnected ecological disruption. When aerial images revealed suspicious water patterns in Walker Brook, their investigators documented how pipeline construction had destabilized the ground so severely that one observer nearly lost his life in a pressurized bog. The landscape had been so dramatically altered that water began flowing in the opposite direction of its natural course.

Goodwin’s path to resistance started in 2019 when she and three friends formed the RISE Coalition (Resilient Indigenous Sisters Engaging) around what they call "Grandmother's Table"—a traditional decision-making structure that allows them to respond rapidly to emerging threats. "We can't be tied to grants or conventional organizing models," explained Goodwin. "We have to be able to move when someone calls us about a mining project or pipeline threat."

This flexibility, combined with the other weapons in the group’s arsenal, has proved effective. They were the first to document the multiple aquifer breaches along Line 3's route, forcing state agencies to acknowledge violations they had overlooked. Similar Indigenous-led monitoring efforts have emerged along other pipeline routes, creating networks that cross both tribal and national boundaries. 

"Line 3 is Line 5, and then turns into Line 9 in Canada," Goodwin noted. That’s why the movement has developed a cross-border working group, connecting activists across the US-Canadian border (or the “Medicine Line,” as it is traditionally known) in their fight to stop the pipelines. 

Water calls her protectors

By invoking treaty rights, building international coalitions, and maintaining consistent pressure, tribal nations have secured significant victories, such as the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Keystone XL. While the Dakota Access Pipeline remains operational, legal challenges forced a comprehensive environmental review and brought unprecedented global attention to Indigenous rights and environmental justice.

"We're indigenizing fucking everything," said Cedar, a.k.a. Lorraine Clements, an Anishinaabe elder who traveled from her Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba to Chicago to support resistance against the latest US/Canadian pipeline in October. 

Indigenous leaders are proving that resistance can be creative, spiritual, and ultimately transformative. The Black Snake, as these gas pipelines are called, may be persistent, but so is the spirit of those who have protected these lands for thousands of generations.

That energy is the foundation of hope. Cedar pointed to the growing network of resistance and solidarity across borders, from the Great Lakes to the Amazon Rainforest. What began as separate struggles against the pipelines across different territories has evolved into something much more powerful: a united movement of Indigenous peoples reclaiming their sovereignty.

"We're about to inundate you," she said with a steely warm smile. "We're about to come from the North and come from the South and bring it. We're so powerful together."

Tracy L. Barnett is an independent writer, editor, and photographer specializing in environmental issues, Indigenous culture, and human rights.