I'm not sure political debates really have any good end, so oh well I will at least start with the obligatory. My sister-in-law is a Native American (making my nephew half-native American), and I have been told my whole life my brothers and I had some Native American blood of our own from at least my mothers side. I also believe many Native Americans have been treated very badly in history, whether it be through subjugation of conquerors seemingly long ago (as have incidentally many other peoples in world history since time immemorial) and/or use as pawns plied with beads, guns, firewater or even up to the present day protest expenses or worse. Early on I guess it was we're the White Man and we're here to help, but now some also "we are the Government and we're here to help". I also believe we should protect the land, as best we can leaving it as we found it (as I have attempted to teach my own children), and think that many Native Americans and environmentalists around the world feel the same. My aunt was furthermore from North Dakota and she and my uncle loved the quite rough/wild outdoor country of there, and later Northern Minnesota. I've spent some time there myself. It is also quite possible many past protests, environmental impact and archaeological reviews etc. have been significant factors in the end (at least where prolonged/total obstruction was not the result) in a result of better routing, as well as better, safer pipelines.
That doesn't mean I don't have conflicting opinion in these cases, as one might just as easily say why would extremely rich, modern-day railroad barons cozy up to previous administrations and their collective special interests (using their influence to effectively prevent or delay completion of pipelines?), even to the point of going along with or blessing their seemingly popular with the left/progressives schemes of "soak the rich"!
In most cases of even best intentions, when it gets right down to it it costs money to protest and live (and most of us have a job, limiting how much protest we can do or want to do!) and maybe particularly in rough/remote country, so one probably/unfortunately has to "follow the money" and that every which way, to have any hope of understanding what is really going on? There is also a fine line between help and enabling. I wouldn't be a bit surprised however if my more Native-American relatives, who incidentally are as well or likely more educated than I am, disagree with me. Whoever is heavily funding the protests should probably at least help with the cleanup of the protesters mess when it is all over.
While it can be argued we all have special interest, I also believe pipelines are a quite efficient and generally at least to the present day relatively safe way of delivering the goods (that are likely to be delivered one way or another, that might in the end be worse, at least until better energy source is available for transport etc.) An interesting case study was/is of course the massive Trans-Alaska Pipeline system, that I believe is now in its 40th year of service (as ALYESKA"), and that has delivered more than seventeen billion barrels of oil in that time frame. The oil and pitch from the rich North Alaska site was incidentally being used by natives long before anyone ever thought of piping it. While I know the pipeline had its own protests and no doubt some "environmental impacts" and other bad effects that continued or continue for a quite long time, and there have also been relatively few incidents involving same over the years, it is nevertheless hard to argue with at least the economic impact of same (that can be observed on Wikipedia and many other sites - and I believe has been in decades since also been a major factor in why Alaska for decades and to the present day has the very lowest combined/effective state and local tax rates in our nation)!
All have a good weekend.