End Designed Violence: Stop Line 3
The Design As Protest (DAP) Collective supports Indigenous leaders, organizers, and communities in the fight against Line 3, and the broader structures of extractive capitalism and settler colonialism. We urgently call upon the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF), and all built-environment professionals, including architects, civil engineers, planners, and more, to take action in solidarity with frontline Indigenous struggles.
The Line 3 pipeline, already declared a public health crisis, is an oil sands pipeline funded by numerous banks including JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, TDBank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, and ultimately owned by Enbridge, the corporation responsible for the largest inland oil spill in the United States. They are proposing a new and expanded line to replace the existing one and bring nearly a million barrels of tar sands per day from Alberta, Canada to Superior, Wisconsin. Countless pipeline projects in the past have proven that pipelines spill every time, and in fact, Line 3 has already spilled 10,000 gallons this summer. Each time it is Indigenous communities who fight on the frontlines to protect the land and water that all of us need to stay healthy. As of the beginning of September, over 800 water protectors have been arrested in their efforts to stop this violent pipeline construction, and Enbridge is aggressively moving towards completion.
This project, along with all oil pipelines, is in direct conflict with ASLA’s own stated advocacy goals and themes. Within the advocacy goals of Climate Change and Resilience, ASLA states that “because climate change and resilience are so important and interwoven with other issues…all our advocacy efforts should take climate change and resilience into account.” Under Equity and Environmental Justice, ASLA takes a clear stance on acknowledging “. All too often underserved communities, especially Black and Native communities, are ignored during the planning stages of a project and disproportionately suffer adverse environmental and health consequences.” If ASLA is committed to these principles of advocacy, we urge the national organization and its local chapters to break the silence on Line 3 now.
To remain silent is disappointing and reprehensible, particularly within the context of a transnational corporation and complicit state actors breaking treaties, funding militarized police retaliation, systematically abusing Indigenous sovereignty, polluting land and water, and endangering Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit relatives — all in service of transporting one of the dirtiest fossil fuel sources available for an industry that is already shrinking.
In light of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, we need swift, decisive action that follows Indigenous leadership on this continent and around the world. Landscape architects and designers have never been central to frontline movements against extractive capitalism and settler colonialism, but we can and must take action from our positions within the system, especially as we are often working directly with state actors like the Army Corps of Engineers, National Parks, and US Forest Service. Landscape architects are among staff at places like AECOM, a global design firm, who boasts that they have “In the past four years alone… permitted more than 30,000 miles of pipeline, designed more than 2,000 miles of pipeline, and constructed over 1,000 miles of pipeline.” Leading landscape firms and academics, such as James Corner Field Operations, SCAPE, and Martha Schwartz Partners, are often awarded projects and given a platform for engaging with issues of climate change and resilience at the policy-level, without taking direct actions to support or center the frontline communities impacted the most by climate change, nor are there meaningful challenges to combat the broader systems that further climate disaster. Design Justice goes beyond projecting just futures — it includes repairing past harm and taking action in the present. As a profession that has already recognized the urgency of climate change and environmental justice, we need to radically shift our practices to reflect our commitments.
The continued silence of the discipline and its professional organizations signifies a profound hypocrisy and complicity. As designers continue to speculate and talk about the climate crisis, we urgently call upon our colleagues at ASLA and beyond to walk the talk, and take action now. We must end designed violence and truly center the voices and demands of Indigenous and frontline communities by taking action to Stop Line 3.
Please take action and share the resources below:
Actions
- Call the White House at 202–456–1111 Tue-Thu from 11am-3pm EDT
- Donate Legal Support for Water Protectors
- Divest from Banks funding Line 3
- Sign the Pledge of Resistance
- Tell Your Senators to Vote NO on HR 1374
- Send Letters to the Army Corps of Engineers
- Send Letters to President Biden
- Participate in Virtual or In-person Actions
- Follow and support Indigenous-led organizations Giniw Collective (@GiniwCollective), RISE Coalition (@RISEandEngage), Gitchigumi Scouts, Honor the Earth (@HonorTheEarth), Red Lake Treaty Camp, Indigenous Environmental Network (@IENearth), Camp Migizi, Manoomin Genawendang Endazhigabeshing Camp, Lakota Law (@lakotalaw)
