rjzimmerman:

Excerpt:

For five years, opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline and members of the Ponca Indian Tribe have sown native tribal corn in the path of the controversial project as a form of resistance.

Now they’ve planted another potential roadblock.

Last weekend, Art and Helen Tanderup, who farm north of Neligh, Nebraska, deeded the 1.6-acre plot of native corn to the native inhabitants of the land, the Ponca.

Selling the land to the Ponca means that TransCanada will have to negotiate with a new landowner, one that has special legal status as a tribe — a tribe that is opposed to the pipeline. The plot becomes the only tribally owned plot of land on the XL pipeline route in the U.S.

“We want to protect this land. We don’t want to see a pipeline go through,” said Larry Wright Jr., the chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. “If this adds another layer (of opposition) to that issue, we’re happy to be part of that.”

Art Tanderup, who used to teach at Tekamah near the Omaha Indian Reservation, said the gift of the land was several years in the making. He said that providing another barrier to the pipeline was just one of the reasons.

Five years ago, his farm was the site of a “spirit camp” of Native Americans protesting the Keystone XL. During that gathering, he said he learned about how the Ponca consider their variety of corn sacred and how it had not been planted in Nebraska since Chief Standing Bear lead the Ponca on their march to Oklahoma.

In possible roadblock for Keystone XL, pipeline opponents gift land to Ponca