Inside Climate News: To Stop Line 3 Across Minnesota, an Indigenous Tribe Is Asserting the Legal Rights of Wild Rice

October 22nd, 2021

Katie Surma of Inside Climate News shares that the White Earth Band of Ojibwe is hoping to establish precedent in support of the unorthodox and novel, but growing rights of nature legal movement. Enbridge Energy finished Line 3 across Minnesota last month, but this has not dampened the White Earth Band of Ojibwes’ focus on protecting the legal rights of Manoomin, or wild rice, to “exist, flourish, regenerate and evolve.”

Manoomin serves as a lead plaintiff along with the White Earth Band. This case, along with other rights of nature legal action, is rooted in Indigenous worldviews. This views nature and humanity as interdependent instead of nature as a thing to own and use. By providing wild rice with its own inherent rights, sustainability can be increased, and destruction to the water resources in Minnesota can be slowed, if not also stopped.

More background on this important legal work is located here.