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Despite the boon that development and its accompanying opportunities offer natives, the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs say “no.” Unlike the elected chiefs who legislate for the Indian reservations, the unelected hereditary chiefs rule the hinterlands, beyond the reservations, through an Aboriginal version of the divine right of kings. In exercising this sweeping power, they purport to be protecting their communities from the ravages of development, such as by deeming construction camps loathsome — one hereditary chief called them “dangerous places. They fly in and fly out, they have no social responsibility to where they are.”

But their high-sounding arguments ring hollow. For one thing, pipelines are common and, as one Wet’suwet’en put it in an interview with the Canadian Press, “It’s not a strange thing to have a pipeline in our territory. We have had a pipeline in our area since the mid-’60s and it hasn’t caused any harm to our environment.” For another, hereditary chiefs have long OK’d development projects in exchange for payments to native organizations. The main difference now, as has become clear, is that the hereditary chiefs are instead in the pockets of the anti-pipeline U.S. Tides Foundation, which funds their activities, and others in the well-heeled environmental lobby. For a third, charges are rife that the hereditary chiefs are acting more like back-stabbing politicians than lofty leaders who are above the fray. Initially, only five of 13 hereditary chefs opposed the project, with three proponents playing a conciliatory role by attempting to bring the different parties together. Those three — all female — were soon stripped of their hereditary titles by hardliners, who replaced them with males more to their liking. Hardline positions were then imposed on all.