"With opposition tactics shifting to the courts and spring floods coming, Native American leaders want pipeline opponents to vacate the camp, despite its successes."

"After months of largely peaceful protests by thousands of demonstrators from across the country who congregated at a camp near Cannon Ball, N.D., to help bring the Dakota Access pipeline to a halt, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has asked the pipeline opponents to go home.

The tribe said it plans to continue its action against the pipeline in the courts, but the protest camp has run its course. The protesters have until Jan. 30 to depart the main camp, according to a resolution passed by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council in Fort Yates on Friday. It also said the tribe may call on federal law enforcement officials to help them remove protesters from all of the camps and to block their re-entry if they haven't left in 30 days.

'Moving forward, our ultimate objective is best served by our elected officials, navigatingstrategically through the administrative and legal processes,' the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said in a statement. 'For this reason, we ask the protectors to vacate the camps and head home with our most heartfelt thanks.'"

Phil McKenna reports for InsideClimate News January 23, 2017. [2]