ABERFOYLE - Youth from Six Nations and members of the Wellington Water Watchers joined forces for a common cause Saturday.
Roughly 200 people protested outside the Nestle Waters water bottling plant and head office in Aberfoyle.
Protesters gathered at the nearby Puslinch Community Centre then marched down to the top of the long driveway leading to the water bottling here were speeches, spoken word performances, chanting and traditional songs were sung.
Makasa Looking Horse organized the event, which began earlier in the day at Six Nations.
"It's important because Nestle is stealing the aquifer underneath us, taking 3.6 million litres of water without our permission," she said.
"I care about it because it's our future generation's water, not a corporation's water."
Rob Case, chair of Wellington Water Watchers, said it is important to have other groups involved in the local fight.
"I think it shows that this is a pretty far-reaching, broad-based, kind of universal effort to organize and protect groundwater and keep it in the control of people. Putting people before profit," Case said.
He said the majority of Six Nations homes don't have clean water piped in to them, yet nearby Nestle is taking water for profit.
"Up the river, still in the Haldamond Tract that is still in Six Nations treaty territory, water is still being bottled up by Nestle for shareholder profits. There's just some kind of irony in that."
He said Wellington Water Watchers was there Saturday to support; however, the Six Nations protestors chose to voice their concerns.
Nestle had security parked further down the long driveway keeping an eye on Saturday's protest at their front entrance and an unmarked police car watched from a distance.
At one point protestors made their way down the driveway, approaching company security, but then they turned around and returned to the top of the driveway adjacent to Brock Road without incident.
"We're going to greet them with love anyway because our relatives that make bad decisions need to be welcomed into the community that is making the right ones," said indigenous activist Eryn Wise of Seeding Sovereignty.
"As indigenous peoples, even though we know it's not our jobs to be emotional support folks for everyone else, we end up doing it because we are caretakers, we are land defenders and we are people that are going to save this planet," Wise said.
