The Action Camp

This is the second video subMedia.tv has produced about the struggle to stop a natural gas transport project called the Pacific Trails Pipeline, or PTP. The Unist’ot’en, a clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, have built a protection camp to block the PTP in so called British Columbia, Canada. This is the third time the Unist’ot’en have called for a convergence in their territories.

This year’s camp attracted over 150 people who came from as far east as Montreal and as far south as Florida. The camp organizers opted not to tap large environmental NGOs for material support and instead reached out to grassroots, community-based allies.

Out of the proposed pipeline projects that would cross through Unis’tot’en land, Pacific Trails is the first one slated to begin construction and poses an immediate threat. The PTP project is a partnership between Apache Canada, Encana and EOG Resources, formerly Enron Oil and Gas. The 463-kilometer PTP would connect a liquified natural gas port in the pacific ocean to the Spectra Energy Westcoast Pipeline in northeast BC with the aim of transporting gas extracted through fracking to overseas markets.

The much-talked-about Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline would transport tar sands oil from Fort McMurray, an extraction project that is devastating ecosystems and indigenous communities in the Athabasca region of Northern Alberta. The Enbridge pipeline would be built side by side to the PTP.

These dirty energy schemes not only threaten nature and indigenous communities in the north, they also have global implications. If decisive action is not taken to stop the flow of oil and gas, the effects of global climate change could be catastrophic for people, plants and animals the world over. This is why indigenous people and their allies traveled from far away to this camp. Our next report will focus on the student strike in Quebec and how it evolved into a social movement. To help make this happen, click here to make a donation.

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