Amidst the cries of "protect our water, protect our land, protect our peoples," Native Americans, ranchers and farmers are standing their ground along a highway in North Dakota. They are blocking the crews of Energy Transfer Partners — a Dallas-based company whose workers are protected by both police and armed, private security personnel — from accessing the site of the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The roughly 1,200-mile-long pipeline would transfer about a half million barrels of oil a day from North Dakota to Illinois. Opponents of its construction worry that a leak or rupture would spell disaster for not only the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, but for all communities along the Missouri River that depend on it for drinking and agriculture.

At least 10 arrests have been made. Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier told the Bismarck Tribune that those arrested "were not staying within bounds set by law enforcement and getting in the way of surveyors working on the pipeline." The arrests included a pediatrician and a grandmother who allegedly crossed the highway to check on a buffalo pasture.

As reported by Truthout in May of this year, Lakota youth, protesting the proposed construction of the pipeline, began a relay race from their Spirit Camp in Cannonball, North Dakota, to the office of the Army Corps of Engineers in Omaha, Nebraska, to deliver a petition against the pipeline. The Corps later decided to grant the necessary permits and green light the pipeline's construction.

The runners decided to then continue their relay all the way to Washington, DC. As they did, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed for both a permanent and preliminary injunction to block the pipeline's construction. The case for the preliminary injunction, filed on August 4 to halt construction immediately, is set to be heard on August 24.

As the tribe prepared for the case, they were issued a 48-hour work notice that informed them construction was set to begin on the Dakota Access Pipeline on the morning of August 10.

That's when the "Camp of Sacred Stones" was set up in Cannonball, North Dakota, along the Missouri River. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, the historic preservation officer for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, put the call out to land defenders to come to the camp to peacefully resist through prayer and solidarity.