The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII called on Canada and the U.S. to decommission Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline, which runs underneath the Straits of Mackinac, connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron – those are the Straits of short waterways between the state of Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas. In the final report of its annual session, the UNPFII stated that Line 5 “jeopardize[s] the Great Lakes” and “represents a real and credible threat to the treaty-protected fishing rights of Indigenous Peoples in the United States and Canada.” Line 5 is just west of the Mackinac Bridge and was built in 1953 to transport oil from the tar sands in the Canadian province of Alberta to tanker ships in Lake Superior.
South Dakota State University faculty and staff are touring South Dakota’s tribal communities to better understand and support current and future American Indian students. SDSU’s Wokini Initiative has partnered with Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to create the professional development training series for SDSU faculty and staff. It aims to foster a culturally responsive and supportive campus environment for American Indian students to increase their retention and graduation rates. The SDSU-Tribal Nations Bus Tour began on Wednesday.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI News center.