Environment Magazine

Germany’s Hambach Forest Occupation Calls for Solidarity and Support

Posted on the 15 July 2014 by Earth First! Newswire @efjournal

by Guk / Hambach Forest Occupation

Campaign_Poster_(CURRENT_NEW)+
Greetings and Salutations from the Hambacher Forest Occupation!

We are presently blocking the expansion of the largest opencast lignite mine in Western Europe with tree sits and barricades through out the Hambacher Forest. After the last eviction on March 27th 2014 we re-occupied the forest, this time, building up two tree sits with multiple platforms, tree-houses, walk ways in between and barricades .

At present we are facing regular intrusion of repressive law enforcement destroying our structures on the ground and have already faced two largescale evictions using tactical teams costing millions of euros while at the same time, the German government, is cutting sustainable energy subsidies. Instead choosing to compensate for the shut down of nuclear power plants with support to the extremely polluting and ecologically catastrophic coal industry (in our case RWE power company which is engaging in massive green washing PR campaigns).

We would like to send you updates and inform you of the upcoming Climate Camp and Skill-shares Gathering (July 26th to August 3rd 2014) happening in our vicinity which we are also helping to organize. We also have a support camp with legal status at the edge of the forest functioning as a de facto activist eco village with a vegan kitchen, guest
caravans, straw bail structures, gardens and many other on-going sustainable projects, to which we would like to invite all of you who may find yourselves in our neck of the woods.

As of recently, we have also built an info-shop/library for which we would like to appeal for any extra literature that you would be willing to share with us. We could cover the costs of shipment and if possible discount rates of literature itself not to mention we would be extremely interested and gratefull if you would be willing to share any back issues or extra literature. If this is a possibility please also respond with your preferable snail-mail address, as we would like to share some of our material with you as well.

We have a support center in Duren, which is unfortunately undergoing a bit of transition at the moment. For the time being the literature for our Meadow Base Camp info-shop and the Climate Camp could be sent, care of one of our supporters:

Frau Annika Lindberg
Rohrbachstr. 37
60389 Frankfurt am Main
Germany

If you would be interested in updates from the forest please include your PGP key in the correspondence.

There is a sense of urgency as even though the forest has been occupied for two years now there is a new autobahn ready for opening in September bypassing the one separating the last remnant of the forest from the mine allowing the mine to expand and logging and strip mining to commence on the last remnant of the forest. We expect that to be the time of mass police actions. For that reason it is mega important to both get the word out and keep people involved, inspired and on track of the importance and the context of the struggle.

Big Thanks for all of your literature and inspiration that has been finding its way to Hambacher Forest.

In Solidarity,
Guk


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