This week, celebrities like “The Fault In Our Stars” lead Shailene Woodley and Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon have joined Native protesters on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe reservation in North Dakota, where many people are giving their best efforts to stop Energy Transfer Partners’ construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.

The 1,170 mile pipeline, likely a replacement for the vetoed Keystone transfer system, will run crude oil from a large cache near Cannon Ball, North Dakota,  to refineries around the country. The goal for this pipeline is simple; make more oil in-house so that we can import less from unstable regions outside the country. Still, the ramifications of a major oil transport system running through the water supplies of hundreds far outweighs any benefits the project might reap, especially for the people of the Standing Rock reservation.

For Natives around the world, water sits at the center of spirituality. It is the source of all life, and any threat to its purity is a threat to the lives of not only the people, but everything that requires water to survive. Were anything to go wrong with the pipeline, during construction or otherwise, the people would leave and the wildlife would die. That is the reason these protesters are fighting.

Protesters like Woodley and Sarandon are camped just outside the construction site in a field belonging to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Every day the protesters move from the camp to the construction site and back again, many accompanied by children and animals. A few men from the Standing Rock reservation have even been photographed riding through the construction site on horseback.

There is no peaceful protest in this situation. A private security company hired by Energy Transfer Partners has been pulled out of the site twice now for their violent responses to the angry protesters. Dogs belonging to the agency have injured five people, along with several protesters’ dogs and at least one horse, after their handlers allowed them to charge into the front line. There are several photos of one of these dogs with a mouth full of blood circulating around social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

In the next few days, a decision will be made on whether or not Energy Transfer Partners can continue construction on the pipeline. For the people of Standing Rock reservation, this decision is the difference between the survival or the extinction of their tribe, and many fear it will not be made in their favor.