Speaker 1: Agrilled listeners. While we're on a brief hiatus working to
Speaker 1: finish up production on some new seasons for you, I
Speaker 1: would love it if you check out our new podcast Damages.
Speaker 1: Damages digs into the stories behind the hundreds of climate
Speaker 1: lawsuits currently making their way through the courts all over
Speaker 1: the world. Our first season is focused on rights of
Speaker 1: nature cases, and I'm bringing you the first episode in
Speaker 1: that season today, a fascinating case filed in White Earth
Speaker 1: Tribal Court on behalf of wild Rice against the State
Speaker 1: of Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources. This suit was originally
Speaker 1: filed as an attempt to stop construction on the Line
Speaker 1: three pipeline in Minnesota. Pipeline's been built, but the case
Speaker 1: is still ongoing and it has some really interesting potential
Speaker 1: implications for lots of different pipeline fights. Check it out,
Speaker 1: and if you like what you hear, go and subscribe
Speaker 1: to Damages. Thanks, and I'll see you again here in
Speaker 1: a few weeks.
Speaker 2: Opponents of Enbridge Energies Line three oil pipeline that's being
Speaker 2: replaced across northern Minnesota are taking a unique legal approach
Speaker 2: to try to halt construction.
Speaker 3: Dozens of people have been arrested for protesting the project.
Speaker 3: That includes Winona La Duke of Indigenous climate justice organization
Speaker 3: Honor the Earth and member of the White Earth Band
Speaker 3: of Ojibway and Minnesota.
Speaker 4: You have women like myself, I'm a grandmother, you know,
Speaker 4: and we're standing out there. I have six charges against
Speaker 4: me for this pipeline, and there's a bunch of us
Speaker 4: that are facing charges for, you know, trying to be
Speaker 4: a water protector.
Speaker 1: You might have heard over the past couple of years
Speaker 1: about the fight against the Line three pipeline in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: Folks were calling it the next Standing Rock, and even
Speaker 1: in the midst of a global pandemic, it drew water
Speaker 1: protectors from all over the country. Wanona La Duke is
Speaker 1: a long time indigenous rights activist and was one of
Speaker 1: the leaders of that resistance.
Speaker 5: What is Line three? A lot of people want to know,
Speaker 5: and a lot of people don't know. So think of
Speaker 5: it this way. There are six really old pipelines so
Speaker 5: that they put through in northern Minnesota shipping diluted tarsands
Speaker 5: from Alberta to Superior wist Concipt. And one of those
Speaker 5: lines is called Line three. It has, according to Mbridge,
Speaker 5: about nine hundred structural anomalies in it. Structural anomalies are
Speaker 5: things like small little pinhole lakes. Maybe it comes some
Speaker 5: cracks and some of those end up to be big
Speaker 5: problems like that Kalamazoo spill. Fixing these problems is very expensive,
Speaker 5: so Mbridge wants to abandon the pipeline walk away and
Speaker 5: build a brand new one in a brand new corridor.
Speaker 5: Mbridge calls this a replacement project. They're replacing line three.
Speaker 5: They are not replacing line B. They're putting in a
Speaker 5: whole new quarter and doubling.
Speaker 2: The size of the line.
Speaker 5: That was not a replacement. That's a brand new line.
Speaker 1: Despite all the resistance to line three, the new pipeline
Speaker 1: was built. They finished construction at the end of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. But the fight isn't over just yet. There's
Speaker 1: one more legal battle.
Speaker 2: The unique case names wild Rice, which is sacred in
Speaker 2: Jibweit culture, as the lead plane.
Speaker 1: Of In fact, according to attorney Frank Bibo, the tribe
Speaker 1: was preparing to fight this battle years ago.
Speaker 2: So Enbridge was trying to do Sandpiper pipeline through here
Speaker 2: on the same corridor.
Speaker 1: Enbridge is the Canadian pipeline company responsible for Line three
Speaker 1: in Minnesota.
Speaker 2: When they found out from the Minnesota Court of Appeals
Speaker 2: that they had to do an environmental impact statement, they
Speaker 2: said forget it. They took their money and invested in Dapple.
Speaker 1: Dapple is the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota. It's
Speaker 1: the pipeline that was at the center of the stand
Speaker 1: Rock protests in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: And then within a month they were running bulldozers or
Speaker 2: were all the water projectors. So we knew at that
Speaker 2: point that's what we were going to get here too.
Speaker 2: Because they were still running the Line three program.
Speaker 1: They started preparing for a fight, and in twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: made a key change to an eighteen fifty five treaty
Speaker 1: that's the treaty that still today governs the relationship between
Speaker 1: Ojibwe tribes and the US government. They added the rights
Speaker 1: of wild rice or monomen in the Ajibwe language to
Speaker 1: that treaty. According to Bibo, the change just formalized something
Speaker 1: that had actually been in all of the treaties between
Speaker 1: the ojibwey and the US all along really.
Speaker 2: Our jurisdiction liies over a broad area for hunting, fishing,
Speaker 2: and gatherings. Those words appear in the treaty wild Rice.
Speaker 2: We see ourselves as connected to wild rice, as connected
Speaker 2: to all the animals, and that we belong to nature
Speaker 2: doesn't belong to us, and so yeah, they are a
Speaker 2: person in that sense, there are equal And so because
Speaker 2: the way wild rice has protected us and made us stronger,
Speaker 2: and you have our territories and continue on, we have
Speaker 2: a covenant and an obligation to protect wild rice. And
Speaker 2: so that's what that law is really about. It's protecting
Speaker 2: wild rice means you're protecting the environment because wild rice
Speaker 2: is an indicator species, and so if it's not doing
Speaker 2: very good, then everything else isn't doing very good.
Speaker 1: Rights of monomen is an example of something called rights
Speaker 1: of nature. It's a legal concept that lawyers often talk
Speaker 1: about as a way to bring indigenous approaches into the
Speaker 1: Western legal system.
Speaker 6: I think that rights of nature it can actually be
Speaker 6: protective of existing beings like river systems or wild rice,
Speaker 6: or something that is under attack from industry or displacement
Speaker 6: or removal or all the colonial patterns that have been
Speaker 6: going on for such a long time.
Speaker 1: That's Ojibwe lawyer Tara Hauska. She's a member of the
Speaker 1: Bear clan of Kuchuching First Nation, and she's been one
Speaker 1: of the leaders of the resistance against Line three. Today,
Speaker 1: she's eagerly watching the last legal challenge to the pipeline,
Speaker 1: a suit brought on behalf of wild Rice against the
Speaker 1: State of Minnesota. The idea behind rights of major is
Speaker 1: that nature, trees and rivers and swamps and wild rice
Speaker 1: could have rights and therefore legal standing. And if nature
Speaker 1: has rights, then humans can help to protect and defend
Speaker 1: those rights. On the surface, this strategy might seem like
Speaker 1: a radical idea, but it's been around for decades actually,
Speaker 1: and in recent years it's begun to have a real
Speaker 1: impact on how a lot of people understand nature and
Speaker 1: our relationship to it, not just culturally, but in powerful
Speaker 1: legal ways too. I'm Amy Westervelt, and I've been reporting
Speaker 1: on a whole bunch of climate lawsuits over the past
Speaker 1: decade and especially in the last five years. I wanted
Speaker 1: to make a podcast documenting those cases, because to me,
Speaker 1: lawsuits aren't about formal arguments in a courtroom, or dry
Speaker 1: legalese or even giant binders full of documents. They're dramatic stories.
Speaker 1: A lot has to happen before someone goes to the
Speaker 1: trouble of filing a lawsuit. It's often the last resort
Speaker 1: in a search for justice, which is exactly what it
Speaker 1: feels like on the climate front. In the face of
Speaker 1: unchecked greed and the total absence of political leadership, communities
Speaker 1: all over the world are turning to the courts to
Speaker 1: do what they're supposed to do, right wrongs. This is
Speaker 1: a podcast about justice and the people who are seeking
Speaker 1: it on behalf of people and planet. Welcome to damage it.
Speaker 1: In season one, the Forest for the Trees, We're taking
Speaker 1: a look at rights of nature. Future seasons will get
Speaker 1: into all kinds of areas, from fraud cases in the
Speaker 1: US against the big oil companies, to constitutional cases in
Speaker 1: other countries including Ecuador, Guyana and Australia. Today, the epic
Speaker 1: saga of an unlikely plaintiff, wild Rice stay with us.
Speaker 1: I had heard about rights of nature for a while,
Speaker 1: but right when I was starting to dig into it
Speaker 1: a little bit more, this great documentary came out. It's
Speaker 1: called Invisible Hand. It's the third film from directors Joshua
Speaker 1: Prabanik and Melissa Troutman and executive producer Mark Ruffalo. It's
Speaker 1: won seven Best documentary awards and received laurels from twenty
Speaker 1: to international film festivals. It's an excellent deep dive on
Speaker 1: the subject of rights of nature. If you want to
Speaker 1: dig into it even more after listening to this series,
Speaker 1: I highly highly recommend it. It's a paradigm shifting documentary
Speaker 1: that does not leave viewers in total despair, but actually
Speaker 1: provides some inspirational solutions, strategies and stories that will move
Speaker 1: you to take action where you live. If you haven't
Speaker 1: seen Invisible Hand, you're missing out. Go to Invisible handfilm
Speaker 1: dot com for more on where to.
Speaker 7: Watch and how to support this great work.
Speaker 8: So you know, our linguistic stock extends far south into
Speaker 8: the what's now called the United States, up to Hudson
Speaker 8: Bay in as far as the Saskatchewan Plains, and we
Speaker 8: were all given instructions on our migration back here that
Speaker 8: we were going to find where we were meant to be,
Speaker 8: where the food grew.
Speaker 9: On the water.
Speaker 1: This is Dale Green, a member of the Leech Lake
Speaker 1: Band of a Jibway in Minnesota, met with me and
Speaker 1: one of our reporters, Karen Savage, on a cold November
Speaker 1: day in deLuce to tell us more about wild rice monomen.
Speaker 1: He fiddled with this bag of dried brown stuff in
Speaker 1: his hands for more than an hour. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what it was, and I hadn't actually seen wild rice before,
Speaker 1: so I wondered if maybe he'd brought some to show us.
Speaker 8: Now, you know, you see me fiddling with this plastic bag.
Speaker 8: This this isn't some illegal substance or anything like that.
Speaker 8: This this is tobacco. In old Jibwe, it's called the
Speaker 8: same ah and the you know, if you've ever been
Speaker 8: around Indian people, specifically on a Shanabe.
Speaker 1: People, Anishanabe is the Jibwe word for the tribe, so
Speaker 1: you'll hear them referred to as Chippewa, a Jibway and
Speaker 1: a Nishianabe kind of interchangeably, depending on who's speaking and
Speaker 1: in which context.
Speaker 8: Just well, everything we do will put out too and ask,
Speaker 8: you know, for the spirits help. I'm doing it. Whether
Speaker 8: it's taking fish from a lake, whether it's harvesting maple sugar,
Speaker 8: whether it's harvesting berries, whether it's taking cedar off the
Speaker 8: trees for medicinal purposes, we would offer the sama to
Speaker 8: that living being. I will ask easier Goukwai to put
Speaker 8: everything in the proper order. On the spiritual side.
Speaker 1: Green told us that he hoped his stories, the Ojibwei
Speaker 1: migration and creation stories, his own family story, had landed
Speaker 1: with us in a spiritual sense. That's my hope today too.
Speaker 1: For some listeners, the idea of wild rice having rights
Speaker 1: might be really hard to grasp. But I invite you
Speaker 1: to sit back, let go of whatever comes to mind
Speaker 1: when you hear that wild rice suit the state of Minnesota,
Speaker 1: and listen to this story.
Speaker 8: Now when we are placed here, you know, our our
Speaker 8: ancient teachings say that we were like a wisp of smoke.
Speaker 8: You know, there was that that spirit essence that that
Speaker 8: looked like a wisp of smoke.
Speaker 1: This is Dale Green again telling the Ojibwe creation story.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 8: And in the way the old man described it to me.
Speaker 8: He said, it's like a hot day and you get
Speaker 8: a downpouring of rain and on the pavement and you
Speaker 8: watch these spirals of of of the evaporation of the water.
Speaker 8: He says that that's how our essence is described. And
Speaker 8: you know, some people to this day talk about there's
Speaker 8: a bright light in all of us. That's our spiritual
Speaker 8: essence that comes from the universe.
Speaker 1: Green interrupted this story with an important point.
Speaker 8: There's stories teachings that I take to heart because they've
Speaker 8: been told to me over and over, so I would
Speaker 8: understand them and I would be able to share them.
Speaker 8: Because prior to nineteen seventy eight, you know, a lot
Speaker 8: of these pro social teachings or underground outlined.
Speaker 1: For about a century, the US government forcibly separated Native families,
Speaker 1: first sending kids to boarding schools far away from their tribes,
Speaker 1: and then through the Indian Adoption Project, removing them from
Speaker 1: their homes and tribes and placing them with white Christian families.
Speaker 1: During that time, thousands of acres of rice beds were
Speaker 1: also destroyed by the government so that they could construct dams.
Speaker 1: The same thing happened in Canada, giving Indigenous people even
Speaker 1: more reason to want to protect monomen today. Despite everything
Speaker 1: that was done to disrupt tribal traditions and knowledge, these
Speaker 1: important stories were passed down from generation to.
Speaker 8: Generation understanding that our creation story were spiritual beings were
Speaker 8: without our mortal shell, we're out or without substance, and
Speaker 8: our creation stories say that we were placed here by
Speaker 8: get You want to do the great mystery? Some people say,
Speaker 8: you know God, the great spirit that you want to do.
Speaker 8: In the Ojibwei language, sent down these incorporeal beings, supernatural beings,
Speaker 8: and they were instructed with a great mystery to help
Speaker 8: Nannishinabe exist here. And in the creation story, they've already
Speaker 8: created the flora and the fauna. So I was taught
Speaker 8: that these supernatural beings went around to the animals and
Speaker 8: petitioned them to give up their substance to give us substance.
Speaker 8: And substance, they went to the two legates, the four legates,
Speaker 8: the fish, the monoman birch, bark trees, the maple, sugar trees,
Speaker 8: the berries, the plants, everything that has a living spirit.
Speaker 8: But the covenant is is that forever remembering what they're
Speaker 8: giving us, which is part of their life. You know
Speaker 8: hopefully you know, by bodies found in five hundred years,
Speaker 8: someone's going to say, this guy's full of monoma. So
Speaker 8: it's a different world concept. I was just seeing an
Speaker 8: article somewhere where the dominant culture sees resources as something
Speaker 8: to be utilized and becoming a commodity. The things that
Speaker 8: they did their best to weaken that influence from those
Speaker 8: that came before us to today. You know, we're part
Speaker 8: of that creation. We're part of that, that thing that
Speaker 8: gives us something, that had to give us substance. Something
Speaker 8: have to give us substance. And the agreement was we
Speaker 8: would remember. And you know, I can look at water
Speaker 8: and see a spirit there. I can look at a
Speaker 8: rocky hillside and see us spirit there. Right now, there's
Speaker 8: probably a spirit right in this room with us, because
Speaker 8: we're talking about a living thing.
Speaker 1: So in to this world concept which sees nature as
Speaker 1: a relative something we're part of, not just a resource
Speaker 1: for humans to use. Let's place water and the rice
Speaker 1: that grows on it, wild rice monomen. It grows in
Speaker 1: large green stocks only on these northern lakes. Every year
Speaker 1: in late August, Ojibwey harvesters hit the lakes in canoes
Speaker 1: carrying knockers, these traditional harvesting sticks that are used to
Speaker 1: gently knock the stocks, sending wild rice falling into the
Speaker 1: belly of the canoe. The rice is roasted and dried
Speaker 1: or bagged and sold. For the rice to grow properly,
Speaker 1: the water has to be really clean.
Speaker 6: It's part of who we are and I know it's
Speaker 6: one of those fundamental core pieces of our identity. For me,
Speaker 6: it's why it came down to this portion of the
Speaker 6: territory to try to protect the wild rice because the
Speaker 6: rice has a right to live and the future generations
Speaker 6: have a right to be in community with that rice.
Speaker 1: This is Tara Hauska again, a member of the Bear
Speaker 1: clan of Ojibwe in what is today Canada and an attorney.
Speaker 1: She led one of the Line three resistance camps in
Speaker 1: Minnesota because she wanted to protect monomen.
Speaker 6: It's something that's been passed down for generations and it's
Speaker 6: something that our people fought for and that sustained us,
Speaker 6: and that we sustained. You know, we have this mutuality
Speaker 6: based relationship of respects. It keeps us alive through the winters.
Speaker 6: You know, the winters up here are harsh, and your
Speaker 6: rice is how you make it. And it's also you know,
Speaker 6: I mean for the economists in the world. It's a
Speaker 6: form of economic trade that's been going on since Minnesota began,
Speaker 6: before Minnesota began, you know, like we've read some old
Speaker 6: school pieces about outsider analysis, like the fur Trader's analysis
Speaker 6: of a Jibwe people, and they said that we were
Speaker 6: kind of like these people that kept to ourselves and
Speaker 6: didn't really need much because we had wild rice, Like
Speaker 6: they specifically mentioned wild rice as a way that they
Speaker 6: couldn't like gain the upper hand. You know, it took
Speaker 6: like ripping the sturgeons out of the river and like
Speaker 6: trying to like, you know, cut us off from food.
Speaker 6: I mean that's like, that's the colonization strategy. That's very common.
Speaker 1: The techniques used to harvest and prepare monomen are passed
Speaker 1: on from generation to generation.
Speaker 6: I mean every bit of it is a ceremony. You
Speaker 6: know that you experienced. It's like it's the time of
Speaker 6: the year that I think a lot of us look
Speaker 6: forward to. And every part of it is so important,
Speaker 6: you know. I mean the knocking, the polling, the paddling,
Speaker 6: the parching, the drying, I mean the roasting and the
Speaker 6: smells and the tactile pieces where you're touching and feeling
Speaker 6: the sacredness of nature that it's gonna in turn take
Speaker 6: care of you, keep you alive. Like all the different
Speaker 6: words and phrases that describe that process in our language,
Speaker 6: you know, they have a lot of meaning and depth,
Speaker 6: and it's more than just food. You know, it is
Speaker 6: a food obviously, and it's part of why we came here,
Speaker 6: right where the food grows on water. That's what we're
Speaker 6: told by Creator to come. That's why we came here,
Speaker 6: you know, from the East coast. But there's more than
Speaker 6: just it being food. It is when you're out in
Speaker 6: the rice and you're knocking the rice, or you're pulling
Speaker 6: through the rice, or you're paddling through the rice. It's
Speaker 6: rhythmic and it's soothing and it's healing, and you can
Speaker 6: smell the water. It's like all around you and the rice,
Speaker 6: and it's just it's such a beautiful part of life.
Speaker 1: The Monoman lawsuit, filed in Wide Earth Tribal Court in
Speaker 1: August twenty twenty one, alleges that the Minnesota Department of
Speaker 1: Natural Resources, along with other state agencies, violated the right
Speaker 1: of wild rice to survive and thrive by handing out
Speaker 1: permits to Canadian pipeline Company and bridge that put the
Speaker 1: region's water at risk of contamination. Like I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: rights of Monomen were added to the eighteen fifty five Treaty.
Speaker 1: That's that treaty document governing the ojibwas relationship with the
Speaker 1: United States and with the state of Minnesota. Back in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, or DNR
Speaker 1: filed an injunction almost immediately, basically a request to throw
Speaker 1: the case out entirely. They argued that White Earth Tribal
Speaker 1: Court had no jurisdiction over a state agency. In particular,
Speaker 1: they invoked the Eleventh Amendment, which bans any state from
Speaker 1: suing another state. They filed that claim in federal court, though,
Speaker 1: so now the jurisdictional debate is proceeding in federal court
Speaker 1: while the rights of Minoman case proceeds in tribal court.
Speaker 1: Tara Housegas says the DNR's reaction to the wild Rice
Speaker 1: suit came as no surprise.
Speaker 6: Minnesota's DNR was side by side by the police officers
Speaker 6: that were protecting Embridge's pipeline throughout the course of the
Speaker 6: ground struggle. I think there are certain moments that really
Speaker 6: stand out when you see, like there's a sign behind
Speaker 6: that says protected wetland that has an Emberge symbol on it,
Speaker 6: There's a DNR officer standing in front of it, and
Speaker 6: then there's just this like gaping scar that's been placed
Speaker 6: into the earth right next to it, clearly destroying that wetland,
Speaker 6: you know, and there's the DNR right there and telling
Speaker 6: you to step back and so like, I was not
Speaker 6: at all surprised to see them immediately in this oppositional
Speaker 6: to tribal sovereignty. They clearly have no respect.
Speaker 1: Minnesota District Court ruled initially in favor of the tribe,
Speaker 1: meaning the case could be heard in tribal court and
Speaker 1: that Minnesota dn R would have to work out a
Speaker 1: solution with White Earth. That decision was appealed, and in
Speaker 1: December twenty twenty one, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals
Speaker 1: heard the case. While that whole jurisdictional argument plays out,
Speaker 1: White Earth Tribal Court has allowed a stay in the
Speaker 1: case there, which means they'll wait and see what happens
Speaker 1: in federal court. Frank Biebo is the lead attorney on
Speaker 1: the case, and he's cautiously optimistic because Wild Rice those
Speaker 1: exact words were specifically mentioned in all of the original
Speaker 1: treaties between the Ojibwe and the US government.
Speaker 2: The rights of anomen. For us, we're relying on treaty language.
Speaker 2: Wild Rise treaties are the supreme law the land and
Speaker 2: the Constitution, so it's hard to get around that not
Speaker 2: being a constitutionally protected treaty right. That's about as I
Speaker 2: as you can get And the DNR thought that primarily
Speaker 2: that the Eleventh Amendment applies to us. But if you
Speaker 2: read the Eleventh Amendment, it says that citizens of another
Speaker 2: state can't sue another state. Well, we weren't citizens, we
Speaker 2: haven't been citizens, or Indians not taxed, we have treaties
Speaker 2: were separated out. So they've appealed it to the Eighth
Speaker 2: Circuit Court of Appeals and they're going to argue there
Speaker 2: we shouldn't have to do this, but in actuality, you
Speaker 2: do have to do this.
Speaker 1: If BBO is right and the case is allowed to
Speaker 1: proceed in tribal court, and if it actually succeeds in
Speaker 1: holding the Minnesota DNR accountable or requiring anything of Enbridge,
Speaker 1: the Minomuan case could set a pretty major precedent, especially
Speaker 1: when you consider that so many of the oil and
Speaker 1: gas pipelines in the United States cross either indigenous land
Speaker 1: or waterways that tribes have rights to.
Speaker 2: And that's what scares the DNR because if we're successful
Speaker 2: with exercise our jurisdiction, and that probably means that a
Speaker 2: lot of other tribes can do the same thing in
Speaker 2: a lot of other states.
Speaker 1: In fact, it could have a pretty immediate impact on
Speaker 1: another pending pipeline in Ojibwei territory one that would also
Speaker 1: threaten wild rice. Line five in Michigan. Likeline three, it's
Speaker 1: been positioned as a replacement pipeline for an older line
Speaker 1: running under the streets of Mackinaw that could potentially threaten
Speaker 1: the Great Lakes and several rivers.
Speaker 2: I think our laws that we've created and we're using
Speaker 2: right now is a game changer, and that other Chipwa
Speaker 2: bands are going to look to do the same thing
Speaker 2: with Enbridge in particular, where Line three continues on through Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: it's Line five and goes over into Mackinaw with Michigan.
Speaker 2: This is all the same rights and the same arguments.
Speaker 1: The other argument Bibo is making is that rights of
Speaker 1: menomen protect pipeline protesters too.
Speaker 2: Monomen provides a defense for tribal members who are defending
Speaker 2: the wild rice. And right now, I'll say about thirty
Speaker 2: five cases they're not online, but all of the tribal
Speaker 2: water protectors who were charged on was one of my clients,
Speaker 2: Terahuska is one of my clients. In the tribal court setting,
Speaker 2: there's probably about fifteen water protectors from White Earth and
Speaker 2: so what I've argued is that wide Earth now has
Speaker 2: off reservation jurisdiction, and that these people are protecting treaty
Speaker 2: resources which is provided for, and there are off reservation jurisdiction,
Speaker 2: and that those cases should be sent to the wider
Speaker 2: tribal court. So when you look at what treaty rights
Speaker 2: really are under federal law, they're considered use refractory property rights,
Speaker 2: the rights to hunt fish and gather.
Speaker 1: Who's a fructory is not a word we hear that often.
Speaker 1: It means the right to use or benefit from property
Speaker 1: while someone else owns the title to it. So in
Speaker 1: this case, the ojibwe have the right to hunt fish
Speaker 1: and gather on the lands that they ceded to the
Speaker 1: US government. That was the deal. We'll give you the land,
Speaker 1: but we want to retain the right to hunt fish
Speaker 1: and gather on it. It was written into the original treaty,
Speaker 1: It's been written into all subsequent treaties, and is still
Speaker 1: part of the treaty governing the relationship between the Ojibwey
Speaker 1: and the US government today.
Speaker 2: So we have a right to be in the public
Speaker 2: waters and the public plans because that's our primary place
Speaker 2: to exercise our rights and if we have a right
Speaker 2: to be there, we can't be trust passing, and we
Speaker 2: have a defense to trustpassing defense of monomen. The same
Speaker 2: thing for the other tribal members.
Speaker 1: As they wait for the Eighth Circuit's decision on the
Speaker 1: Manoman case that jurisdictional question. Water protectors like Dale Green
Speaker 1: and Tarahauska are continuing to fight to protect both nature
Speaker 1: and their culture and traditions.
Speaker 8: Apologize for people feeling the need to stand up for
Speaker 8: pristine water.
Speaker 6: It is cultural genocide, right like this is the eradication
Speaker 6: of culture, but it's also ecocide, eradication of that living
Speaker 6: being that has you know, doesn't have a right to live.
Speaker 1: Next time on damages.
Speaker 9: And I was trying to think of what would a
Speaker 9: radically different consciousness that we all link look like, and
Speaker 9: I said it would be where nature had rights, trees
Speaker 9: warming to it, the rivers and the place broke. Is
Speaker 9: PANDEMONI not.
Speaker 10: Really the rational Western mind that came up with these ideas,
Speaker 10: you know, it is actually those individuals and living harmony
Speaker 10: with environments. All around the world. One can find, you know,
Speaker 10: the same approach when it comes to indigenous peoples and.
Speaker 3: Many Western societies we value things that we value by
Speaker 3: giving them rights.
Speaker 1: Early Americans were afraid of the wilderness, and they said,
Speaker 1: if we.
Speaker 2: Leave Indian people's in ownership, they will just waste it
Speaker 2: as wilderness.
Speaker 1: Damages is an original Critical Frequency production. Our editor and
Speaker 1: senior producer is Sarah Ventry. Sound designed by Ray Pang,
Speaker 1: mixing and mastering by Mark Busch. Additional editing by Martha
Speaker 1: troyan citizen of Obi Shika Kong lack Sul First Nation.
Speaker 1: The show is written and reported by me Amy Westerveld,
Speaker 1: with additional reporting by Karen Savage, Meg Duff, and Lindall Rawlins.
Speaker 1: Our fact checker is woodan Yan. Our First Amendment attorney
Speaker 1: is James Wheaton of the First Amendment Project. Our theme
Speaker 1: song this season is burd in the Hand by Forenown.
Speaker 1: Artwork is by Matthew Fleming. The show is supported in
Speaker 1: part by a generous grant from the File Foundation. If
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.