By Brenna TwoBears (Ho-Chunk, Diné, Standing Rock), Keep it in the Ground Co-Lead Organizer

Portland, OR – The sun is out, and the temperature is mid-seventies. It is a nice, warm, sunny day outside. It is also November.

Of course, it cooled down eventually. Then the election happened. The world continued to turn. The matriarchs in my life say, “We will still do what we do,” “We’d be fighting this good fight either way,” and “Be in community.”

So let’s look forward and see what we can do. Like the appointment of Trump’s administration, and in particular, North Dakota Gov. Burgum as Secretary of Interior. So-called “Energy Czar,” Burgum is known for publicly supporting the Dakota Access Pipeline and many other oil and gas projects in his state. We need to take this as the omen it is, as Trump loudly proclaims, “Drill, baby, drill,” in his appointment speech.

On the US federal stance on fossil fuels, Tribal Chairman of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, Juan Mancias said, “They’re still lacking the awareness [of] or knowing who our spirit is. And I think that scares them because they have no spirit. We live [on] a bigger plantation now. The United States of fossil fuels. That’s what it is. It’s not the United States of America. It should be the fossil fuel states of America because they’re the plantation and they’re making the laws and they’re doing what they want to do. And that’s who’s in an office doing, taking the money to do this kind of stuff.”

What Bergum, and other Trump appointees, have in common is their collective greed and prioritization of the rich. Even when folks seem optimistic about Burgum approving more renewable energy projects, he does so in ways that will leave Indigenous Peoples on the frontlines, battling with the issues of overconsumption. Take the recent approval of the Summit Carbon pipeline in South Dakota: a false solution whose whole economic basis hangs on the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. If there is less carbon, the feasibility of these projects becomes moot. In order to make money off it, they would need more carbon to be released.

What can we do then?

People talk about Land Acknowledgements all the time, but the issue of protecting Sacred Lands will be an even bigger issue through this next presidential term. Look at Chaco Canyon, Oak Flats, the Bears Ears Monument. During Trump’s last term, he opened up Bears Ears Monument for oil and gas leases; despite Secretary Haaland’s work to restore that, we plan for the inevitable fight to save it– yet again.

Considering all this, is it any wonder that even as the Biden Administration goes to pause the new licenses on LNG exports, sacred lands in Texas are in danger from the proposed Rio Grande LNG. The Carrizo Comecrudo tribe of Texas is not federally recognized, so unlike the five tribes in the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, they do not have the same standing within the Department of the Interior to protect their lands. As the desecration of sacred sites continues to run rampant, there is already a history of burial grounds disrupted in the Rio Grande area. Still, Indigenous Sovereignty does not require the approval of the imperialist government, as the Carrizo have shown. The Federal Appeals Court reversed the Federal Energy Regulations Committee’s approval of many LNG export plants earlier this year, a result of years of activism from the tribes and their allies. NextEnergy continues construction, despite the realities on the ground that prove the damage done will add to the degradation and send us one more giant step toward climate chaos.

On the restoration, then the sale of land for the Rio Grande LNG, Executive Director of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribes Christa Mancias said,“Site prep for phase one is part of a restoration channel that they spent $10 million to restore after this disruption to make it, and now they lease the land to already destroy it again. . .  So these lands are being leased so they can build one of the largest LNG’s in the world in south Texas on, you know, Indigenous land, you know, sacred land restoration, you know, channel the right across the street from a wildlife refuge. It doesn’t make sense. Like we’re trying to protect land, restore it, and then you sell it just to destroy it again.”

So if even Bears Ears, with multiple federally-recognized tribes exercising their inherent sovereignty, still have to fight tooth and nail to protect their lands, imagine the fight for un-federally recognized tribes, like the Carrizo Comecrudo.

They need us even more now, and we need to protect the lands even more now. This is the herald for a turning point in our fight for Indigenous rights and Environmental Justice. Stand behind leaders across Indian Country who are fighting to protect our lands, because we are the only ones standing between climate cataclysm and our collective survival.