November, 28 2016, 11:45am EDT
![Center for Biological Diversity](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012680/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Tel: (520) 623.5252,Email:,center@biologicaldiversity.org
Endangered Species Mural at Standing Rock Supports Tribal Push to Protect Water, Sacred Land From Pipeline
Dakota Skipper Mural Is Tenth Installment in National Endangered Species Mural Project
CANNON BALL, N.D.
In support of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe's campaign to protect their water and sacred grounds from the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Center for Biological Diversity and artist Roger Peet have installed a mural of an endangered butterfly at the Oceti Sakowin camp, where hundreds of tribes and allies have gathered in peaceful protest.
In addition to the threat to people, water and sacred places, the pipeline will also kill the Dakota skipper, a rare prairie butterfly protected under the Endangered Species Act. The brightly colored butterfly mural is intended as a show of support of the gathering of water protectors and to symbolize the harm the project will cause to people and wildlife. It is painted on the side of a structure built by the "Shelter for the Storm" project to provide shelter for indigenous media collectives during the frigid winter.
"It was an honor to paint this mural in the Oceti Sakowin frontline camp, and to offer it to the assembled water protectors as something bright and beautiful within the vibrant assembled communities of First Nations peoples," said Roger Peet, who leads the Center's national endangered species mural project. "The struggle at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline is native-led and native-voiced, and the protectors there are facing down police violence in defense of all species, large and small, including even the tiny but tough Dakota skipper."
Dakota skippers are small butterflies with hooked antennae and thick, muscular bodies that enable a faster, more powerful flight than other butterflies. They have already lost nearly two-thirds of their original range due to loss of native prairie habitat. They are currently found only in the eastern half of North Dakota, northeastern South Dakota and western Minnesota, and are already extirpated in Iowa and Illinois. They were protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2014.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledged that the threatened butterflies will be harmed by construction and maintenance of the pipeline, but issued a permit that allows the butterflies to be killed and their habitat to be degraded. The Service suggested to the company and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the butterflies be monitored and that voluntary conservation measures be taken to try to minimize the overall harm to the species.
"Respecting the diversity of the earth's cultures and people is intrinsically connected to protecting its plants and animals, so the plight of the Dakota skipper butterfly is directly connected to the plight of indigenous cultures that will be irreparably harmed by the pipeline," said Tierra Curry, a senior biologist at the Center. "The government should stop the Dakota Access Pipeline because of the threat it poses to tribal rights, to endangered species and to our collective future."
The pipeline will harm 19 endangered species including the pallid sturgeon, Topeka shiner, whooping crane, interior least tern, piping plover, rufa red knot and northern long-eared bat.
The structure on which the mural was painted is one of two designed and built by Oregon's Shelter for the Storm Project, coordinated by activists Esther Forbyn and Matt Musselwhite. It was framed entirely using solar power, and with timber felled and milled by hand from dead trees in communities in southern Oregon. Two indigenous media collectives will use the structures for warmth and power in the coming final stretch of the struggle against the pipeline.
"It's vital that indigenous voices have a warm and safe space from which to do their work," said Peet. "Our work to build and decorate these structures is a small way to help amplify the native-led struggle against the bankrupt energy systems that are destroying the world.".
Standing Rock and Dakota Access Background
The $3.8 billion pipeline would transport fracked crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. On Nov. 15, rallies were held in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., for a national day of action urging President Obama and the Army Corps of Engineers to permanently halt the pipeline. This call to action from indigenous leaders in Standing Rock was in response to increased violent repression from militarized police as the pipeline company continues construction on sacred land, despite a voluntary hold by the Army Corps. On Nov. 20, militarized police endangered the lives of the water protectors by attacking them with water cannons in sub-freezing temperatures and firing rubber bullets, pepper spray and concussion grenades that injured more than 300 people. The Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council reports that a 21-year-old woman from New York City was severely injured by a concussion grenade thrown by police that shattered her arm.
Endangered Species Mural Project Background
The Dakota skipper mural is the 10th installment in the Center's national endangered species mural project, which aims to increase appreciation of endangered species in communities across the country. Murals already in place include the mountain caribou in Sandpoint, Idaho; the Arctic grayling in Butte, Mont.; the monarch butterfly in Minneapolis; the jaguar in Tucson, Ariz.; the blue whale and yellow-billed cuckoo in Los Angeles; the watercress darter in Birmingham, Ala.; the pink mucket pearly mussel in Knoxville, Tenn.; and the white fringeless orchid in Berea, Ky. Upcoming murals are planned of the hellbender salamander in Conway, Ark.; and the marbled murrelet, a seabird, in Arcata, Calif.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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Critics Warn Manchin-Barrasso Permitting Bill 'Is Taken Straight From Project 2025'
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Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that one campaigner linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
While Manchin has been trying—and failing—to pass fossil fuel-friendly permitting reform legislation for years, Brett Hartl, director of public affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that his "Frankenstein legislation is taken straight from Project 2025, and it's the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry."
Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
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"Monday was the hottest day in recorded history," Hartl noted. "It's shocking that as the climate emergency continues to break records around us, the Senate continues to fast-track the fossil fuel expansion that is killing us. This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
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However, Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International's U.S. manager, warned Thursday that "this bill is yet another dangerous attempt by Sen. Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrificing communities and our climate along the way."
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NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
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Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
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Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
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Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
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In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
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The U.S. last week announced $203 million in additional aid to Sudan—part of a $2.1 billion pledge that world leaders made in April, which some countries have not yet delivered on.
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After days of condemnation from critics including actress Jennifer Aniston and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Sen. JD Vance was given the opportunity on Thursday to clarify his remarks from 2021 in which he said the Democratic Party was run by "childless cat ladies."
Instead, the Ohio Republican and running mate of former President Donald Trump assured SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly on "The Megyn Kelly Show" that while he has "nothing against cats," he meant what he said in terms of "the substance" of his argument.
Vance made it clear, said Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), "that he meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
The comments in question were made by Vance to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson when Vance was running for the Senate.
Calling out Buttigieg—who, the secretary disclosed this week, was struggling at the time to adopt a child with his husband—and Vice President Kamala Harris, a stepmother of two and the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, Vance said people without biological children "don't really have a direct stake in" the future of the country and therefore shouldn't hold higher office.
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He also specifically categorized people who don't have children as "bad" in an interview in 2021, saying the government should "reward the things that we think are good" and "punish the things that we think are bad," with people taxed at a lower rate if they have children.
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In his interview with Kelly on Thursday, Vance attempted to pivot away from his own comments, saying his point was to criticize "the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child" and claiming without evidence that the Harris campaign had "come out against the child tax credit"—a signature policy of the Biden-Harris administration.
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Vance and Kelly went on to lament the anxiety "hardcore environmentalists" and progressive lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have expressed about the damage fossil fuel extraction is doing the planet, accusing them of pushing people to forgo having families—but said nothing about Republican policies that have made child-rearing less accessible.
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Under Republican abortion bans, numerous stories have cropped up of pregnant people who have been forced to carry pregnancies to term despite finding out that their fetuses had fatal abnormalities and would die soon after birth—as have stories of children who were forced to give birth or had to cross state lines in order to get abortion care.
As with his position that nonparents should be "punished" for not having children, "who else does 'pro-child/family' Vance think should 'face consequences and reality' by way of curtailing choices, rights, and freedoms?" asked writer Alheli Picazo. "Women and girls who become pregnant through rape/incest."
University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick said that one could test "empirically" Vance's claim that Democratic policies are anti-family.
"But I haven't heard the GOP talk much about things that would help my family and my kids," she said, "like reducing childcare and tuition costs."
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