from Earth First! Newswire
Greetings and Salutations from the Hambacher Forest Occupation!
We are presently blocking the expansion of the largest opencast lignite mine in Western Europe with treesits and barricades through out the Hambacher Forest. After the last eviction on March 27th 2014 we have re-occupied the forest, this time, building up not one but two separate tree sits with multiple platforms, tree-houses, walk ways in between and barricades throughout the forest.
At present we are facing regular intrusion of repressive law enforcement destroying our structures on the ground and have already faced two large scale evictions by tactical teams costing millions of euros while at the same time Germany with its unearned international status as being eco-concious is compensating for the shut down 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 wash PR campaigns). While at the same time austerity measures are employed to slash sustainable energies research and development.
To address these issues we are helping to organize this years Climate Camp in our vicinity in a Coal Mining Ghost Town of Borsechemich(a surreal blank canvas for all types of urban actions). Taking place from July 26 to August 3 with an Action day on August 1. The Climate Camp will be followed by a skillshares gathering in our forest occupation support Meadow Camp which contains a vegan kitchen, guest straw bail house and caravans, gardens and multiple eco projects. It is a camp with owners permission and hence constitutes a safe space during police intrusions into the forest. The newest addition is an info point library for which and for the clima camp and skill share gathering we would like to send out a shout out for a literature exchange with other struggles and occupations.
Our address is:
Meadow Camp InfoPoint Library
Kallsgasse 20
52355 Düren
Please include your snail-mail address as well and we will respond with our posters and stickers.
Presently there is a sense of heightened 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 us 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 the people involved, inspired and on track of the importance and the context of the struggle.
In Solidarity,
http://hambachforest.blogsport.de/