For decades, Native Americans were reliant on the US government to bring them power. Now, that may be changing.
Indigenized Energy Cody Two Bears founded Indigenized Energy, a native-led energy company installing solar farms for tribal nations in the US (Credit: Indigenized Energy)
By Lucy Sherriff BBC Features Correspondent
It was at Standing Rock, as he watched a fellow protester be cuffed and manhandled into a police car, that Cody Two Bears, a member of the Sioux tribe in North Dakota, decided he would build a solar farm.
“I realized I didn’t want to just talk about it, protest about it,” he says, reflecting on the months-long protests that took place in 2016, to prevent the Dakota Access Pipeline from being built on sacred tribal land. “I wanted to be about it.”
At the time, Two Bears was on the tribal council of the Cannon Ball community of Standing Rock. He was a key member in organizing the pipeline protests, which had hoped to prevent a 1,172 mile (1,886km) long underground pipe from transporting crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. The pipeline was eventually built despite multiple appeals to have the line shut down. However, a lawsuit brought by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe was successful, requiring a complete environmental review of the pipeline.
“I learned about the impacts of fossil fuels on communities like ours, who don’t really have a voice,” says Two Bears. “And it seems these large infrastructural projects always happen in places of low-status communities. And one came to my backyard.”
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