Water Protector Legal Collective

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Water Protector Legal Collective

WPLC is a diverse group of people from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences.

Born out of the movement, the Water Protector Legal Collective is an Indigenous-led legal nonprofit that provides support and advocacy for Indigenous peoples and Original Nations, the Earth, and climate justice movements. The Water Protector Legal Collective is an Indigenous-led legal nonprofit that provides support and advocacy for Indigenous peoples and Original Nations, the Earth, and c

limate justice movements.

Born out of the movement, WPLC's founding mission was to serve as the on-the-ground legal team for the Indigenous-led resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) at Standing Rock, North Dakota. Since we first arrived at the request of tribal leadership and set up a legal tent in Oceti Sakowin, WPLC has been providing legal support to the Water Protector Movement. We are guided by our shared vision of a world that is grounded in our belief that Indigenous peoples have a unique and profoundly important role to play to stem the tide of the unfolding climate emergency we live in. This vision is in part a result of the inspiration we draw from the transformative experiences that some of us glimpsed, and others of us lived at the resistance camps at Standing Rock. In 2019, after over 800 criminal defense cases for Water Protectors came to a close in North Dakota, WPLC moved our office to New Mexico, where we have expanded our organization’s founding mission. In addition to our core legal support work, we recognize that education and skill-development for Indigenous peoples is a central component of our work, as is sharing legal information as a means to building agency and power in the struggle for liberation and against environmental destruction and racism. The thread that ties us together is that we are called to protect those who stand up to protect the environment and sacred, ancestral lands threatened by extractive industry, and economic development projects that put property rights over human rights. We remain deeply honored for the opportunity to be a part of this growing movement and to continue this vital work beyond Standing Rock.

06/12/2026

The deep ocean is one of the last places on Earth not yet fully industrialized.

That may soon change.

Governments and corporations are moving quickly to open the ocean floor to commercial mineral extraction, despite significant scientific uncertainty about the ecosystems that would be affected and growing concerns from Indigenous Peoples, Pacific communities, scientists, and civil society organizations around the world.

Today, Water Protector Legal Collective and RISE Earth Initiative are proud to release Deep Sea Mining: Industrializing Earth’s Last Sacred Space.

This report examines the environmental, political, economic, and cultural dimensions of deep-sea mining—from biodiversity loss and irreversible ecosystem damage to militarization, critical mineral supply chains, Indigenous rights, and global ocean governance.

The decisions being made today will shape the future of the ocean for generations.

Before industrial extraction begins, communities deserve transparency, accountability, and a full understanding of what is at stake.

Read the report at the link in our bio.

05/25/2026

Memorial Day asks us to remember sacrifice. It can also ask us to reckon with contradiction.

Today, we honor the lives, service, and sacrifices of Indigenous veterans and all those who have served, even as we also recognize and decry the impacts of militarism on Indigenous communities, lands, and waters.

Indigenous Peoples have a long history of military service rooted in traditions of protection, responsibility, and care for community. Indigenous Peoples continue serving in the U.S. Armed Forces at the highest per capita rate of any demographic group in the United States.

A few realities exist side by side:

• Indigenous Peoples serve at five times the national average, the highest per capita military service record among all ethnic groups in the United States.

• Since 9/11, nearly 19% of Native Americans have served in the armed forces, compared to an average of 14% across other demographics.

• Indigenous veterans continue returning home to lands and waters impacted by extraction, militarization, pollution, and unfulfilled Treaty obligations.

Indigenous communities continue carrying disproportionate burdens tied to militarization while also serving within military institutions at extraordinary rates. Indigenous lands continue bearing the impacts of weapons testing, contamination, military expansion, and extractive development.

These truths exist together.

Indigenous veterans have long spoken about the contradictions of defending a country while continuing to fight for Treaty rights, sovereignty, land, and water at home.

This Memorial Day, we honor Indigenous veterans and those who never returned home.

We remember sacrifice.

We remember responsibility.

And we continue the work of protecting land, water, and future generations.

05/22/2026

On May 21, 2026, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed a new Record of Decision approving an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline beneath Lake Oahe.

The decision formally closes the latest federal Environmental Impact Statement process ordered after Standing Rock Sioux Tribe successfully challenged DAPL’s prior approval in court.
The decision does not erase what communities have raised for nearly a decade.

DAPL crossed Standing Rock Sioux Treaty territory without free, prior, and informed consent and without meaningful Tribal consultation. Concerns surrounding water risks, Treaty rights, sacred places, and the expansion of extractive infrastructure imposed without consent remain.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has made clear that this fight is not over.

Water Protector Legal Collective continues this work as co-counsel alongside Jeff Parsons and Peter Capossela in support of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe as the Tribe continues defending its Treaty homelands, waters, and sacred places.

Nearly ten years after Standing Rock, Mni Wiconi lives forward.
Water is Life.

   

05/15/2026

A new global analysis from the Business & Human Rights Centre documents nearly 800 attacks against human rights defenders in 2025 alone. 
These include killings, threats, intimidation, criminalization, surveillance, and SLAPP suits targeting people who raise concerns about corporate abuse, extraction, labor exploitation, and environmental destruction. Nearly one third of those attacked were Indigenous defenders. 
Across the world, communities protecting land, water, forests, labor rights, and sacred places are confronting escalating repression alongside expanding corporate and extractive power. 
This violence reflects a broader global pattern in which defenders are treated as obstacles to profit rather than people defending collective survival, human rights, and future generations. 
The report describes this moment as a global crossroads: who is protected, who is silenced, and whose interests are prioritized will shape the future of climate justice, democratic participation, and human rights worldwide. 
In the face of corporate abuse of power, frontline communities and human rights defenders continue resisting extraction, criminalization, and impunity. WPLC contributed a short reflection on ten years of resistance at Standing Rock and the ongoing struggle against DAPL, published alongside reflections marking nearly a decade since the assassination of Berta Cáceres and the continuing fight for justice.      

05/05/2026

MMIW

Today, May 5, marks the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. MMIWG2S is a crisis that Indigenous communities have been naming for generations.

Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit relatives face some of the highest rates of violence in the world:
💔 More than 4 in 5 American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime.
💔 The Urban Indian Health Institute reports that 94% have experienced r**e or coercion. Many face lasting impacts, including high rates of su***de attempts and substance use following violence.
💔 Murder remains one of the leading causes of death for Indigenous women, with rates more than 10 times the national average in some regions.

And still, the full scale of this crisis is obscured.

💔 Of 5,712 reported cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women in 2016, only 116 were logged in Department of Justice databases.
💔 In 2021, more than 5,200 Indigenous women and girls were reported missing. Federal data remains incomplete, inconsistent, and undercounted.

This violence is systemic, tied to extractive industries, militarization, jurisdictional gaps, and systemic failures that allow harm to continue without accountability. As pipeline expansion and resource extraction increase, so do the conditions that heighten vulnerability and risk for Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit relatives.

What is counted is already devastating. What is not counted or erased, deepens the crisis.
   

05/02/2026

Santa Marta marked a shift.

Over 50 countries gathered alongside Indigenous Peoples, movements, and civil society in a space outside formal UN processes, focused not on debating the crisis, but on how to move beyond fossil fuels. Without procedural constraints, the conversation moved closer to reality, where transition is no longer abstract, but political, territorial, and already unfolding.

The Water Protector Legal Collective participated in the Santa Marta Conference alongside Indigenous leaders, governments, and global movements working to define a just transition grounded in rights, accountability, and the protection of land and water.

What emerged was not consensus, but direction. Indigenous Peoples entered with coordination and clarity, advancing a global declaration that sets out concrete standards for what a just transition must require. These are not distant principles. They are conditions that will shape how policies, investments, and decisions take form across regions.

Santa Marta did not resolve the tensions at the center of the transition. It made them visible.

The path forward is being defined now.

05/01/2026

Lakota youth are currently locked down to drilling equipment at Pe’ Sla in the Black Hills. 
Community members are gathered in prayer. Drilling is being physically blocked as this unfolds. 
Pe’ Sla is a sacred site. What is happening here reflects a broader pattern of intrusion onto Indigenous lands and the defense of places that cannot be replaced. 
“As youth we have nothing to lose and everything to win. We will put our bodies on the line. This is the Lakota way of life. We do this so our people can live.” 
The company has indicated that law enforcement is on the way. 
There is an active call for support. Tribes, Nations, organizations, and collectives are being asked to sign onto the “Stop the Drilling at Pe’ Sla” letter. 
If you are nearby, presence matters. 
“We will keep our heart beating.”
 📸 Photos by  
   

04/27/2026

Action alert!

Public comments are open on a proposed 742-megawatt natural gas plant on Navajo Nation.

If approved, this project would authorize significant emissions with long-term impacts on air quality, public health, and surrounding communities.

The EPA is currently accepting comments on the draft permit.
This is a critical opportunity to raise concerns, document impacts, and ensure community voices are part of the official record.

Deadline: April 29, 2026
Submit via Regulations.gov (Docket ID: EPA-R09-OAR-2024-0028) or email [email protected]

04/22/2026

Today, on Earth Day, legal experts, advocates, and movement leaders examine critical questions at the intersection of human rights, environmental justice, and the protection of nature.

On the eve of a global summit in Santa Marta on the transition from fossil fuels, join us for this forum on the crisis of international law and the rights of nature, and a preliminary hearing of the International Tribunal of Conscience of Peoples in Movement in-person in Bogotá and via livestream.

Co-founder of the Tribunal of Conscience of Peoples in Movement, Camilo Pérez-Bustillo, who is also Human Rights Expert Advisor to Water Protector Legal Collective, opens the day at this international forum. Natali Segovia, Executive Director of WPLC, will deliver the closing keynote joining from the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City. The forum and tribunal are co-sponsored by Global Exchange, Natura, Colectivo Otra Colombia es Posible, UNILA, CESJUL, among others.

From Bogotá to Santa Marta, these dialogues affirm that the defense of human rights, the rights of nature, and a just transition are inseparable.

Link in bio to watch live (Spanish language transmission).

04/17/2026

The transition to renewable energy is accelerating, and so is the demand for transition minerals.

Lithium, cobalt, and nickel are essential to building batteries and clean energy systems. But the extraction of these materials is expanding into Indigenous lands and ecologically fragile regions across the world.

The result is a growing tension:

Can the energy transition be truly sustainable if it depends on continued extraction?

A just transition must go beyond replacing fossil fuels. It must center Indigenous sovereignty, respect the right to consent or refusal, and protect land and water from further harm.

Climate solutions cannot replicate the systems they seek to replace.

Address

Albuquerque, NM
87176

Telephone

+17015669108

Website

http://waterprotectorlegal.org/

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