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Watch ‘We Are the Water’: How the Tsleil-Waututh Nation Is Protecting Ancestral Land

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Three generations of women from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation fight against the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline in “We Are the Water.”

“Tsleil-Waututh means ‘people of the inlet.’ So our names and our identities are attached to the bodies of water that we reside on,” stated Kaya George, a 23-year-old activist and voice of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in “We Are the Water.”

These ancestral lands and waters are currently known as British Columbia. They are also the home of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. Such industrial growth from European settlers has historically devastated the land and, more importantly, the water.

To become “protectors of the water,” the Tsleil-Waututh Nation created the Sacred Trust Initiative to fight against the pipeline’s expansion.

“This is not a story about victimhood, it’s not a story about despair, it’s a story about what humans can be …” said photographer and storyteller Dani Khan De Silva in “We Are the Water.”

Runtime: 8 minutes

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