Across the American Midwest, water protectors and land defenders are using both Indigenous knowledge and Western science to re-evaluate new pipeline constructions and expose damage caused by existing pipelines. Waadookawaad Amikwag (“Those Who Help Beaver”) is a diverse community group of water protectors, scientists, drone pilots, field monitors, and grassroots organizers that is gathering and interpreting evidence of environmental destruction from the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline, expanded in 2021 after a decade of Native-led resistance. The group’s work reveals how water protectors are fulfilling obligations to the land and water enshrined in the region’s founding treaties, and pressuring state and federal agencies to do the same.
Join members of Waadookawaad Amikwag and critical geographer Kai Bosworth for a Zoom Webinar discussing their troubling findings, including aquifer breaches, lack of tribal consultations, and inadequate state regulation enforcement. This event will explore how Indigenous knowledge and Western science can be mobilized to halt the destruction caused by pipelines, stop future projects, and protect the land and water for future generations––in Minnesota and beyond.
SPEAKERS
Victoria M.L. McMillen (Migizi Clan, Anishinaabeg Nagachiwaanong) and her family have been Indigenous volunteers for Waadookawaad Amikwag for over two years. With backgrounds in natural resources, human services, and education, they offer their perspectives as cultural and Traditional Ecological Knowledge carriers. By including their children in WA efforts, they seek to educate and embolden the next generation in their rights to self-determination and the protection of treaty rights.
Jami Gaither is a co-founder of Waadookawaad Amikwag and a retired metallurgical engineer who understands the technical issues around pipeline stressors that can lead to leaks and spills. Her family lives on land abutting the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline corridor, near the White Earth Reservation, where Waadookawaad Amikwag have identified two significant Line 3 damage sites. Since 2014, Jami has testified against Line 3 and documented the many failings of the state’s regulatory process on her blog.
Jeff Broberg is a Minnesota Licensed Professional Geologist born, raised and educated in Minneapolis. He dedicates his time and experience to nonprofits working to protect, enhance, and restore Minnesota’s waters. Jeff helped launch Waadookawaad Amikwag, using high-resolution remote thermal sensing to document the damages caused by Enbridge Line 3, with the aim of holding the regulators, contractors, and Enbridge accountable. With Waadookawaad Amikwag, he helps prepare legal briefs for Indigenous legal actions against State and Federal regulators and Enbridge to ensure and protect the rights of nature.
Kai Bosworth is a geographer and Assistant Professor of International Studies in the School of World Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Red Natural History Fellow with The Natural History Museum. His first book, Pipeline Populism: Grassroots Environmentalism in the 21st Century (2022) investigates how contemporary environmental struggles and resistance to pipeline development became populist struggles.
This event is organized by Kai Bosworth as part of Natural History for a World in Crisis, a programming series organized by the 2024-2025 cohort of Red Natural History Fellows with The Natural History Museum.
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