The protest over a scrap of ancient forest in Germany is about much more than a few scraggly tree huggers. It's about the future of energy — and protection of the climate around the world, says DW's Sonya Diehn.
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Image: picture alliance/dpa/C. Gateau
You may have caught wind of the drama unfolding in Hambach Forest, just 50 kilometers from where I sit at DW headquarters in Bonn, Germany.
If so, you know that police are working to evict a band of activists that have been occupying a patch of trees for the past six years.
But what you may not have gotten from media reports is the profound significance the outcome of this struggle will have — for the future of energy in Germany, as well as for climate protection around the world.
First, the basic facts: German energy giant RWE runs some of the largest brown coal mines in Europe, among them the Hambach mine in western Germany, near the border of France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
RWE has been gradually expanding this mine over the decades it's been profiting from brown coal extraction. At the edge of the massive open pit are a few hundred hectares of forest — it's a tiny scrap left over from what's already been cut down: the Hambach Forest.
The Hambach Forest stands at the edge of Hambach open-pit brown coal mine — the largest (and most polluting) in EuropeImage: BUND
Since 2012, activists have been living in dozens of treehouses they've built, in anticipation of the day when RWE — which owns the land and is legally allowed to cut down some forest every year, to mine the brown coal underneath — starts to do just that.
That day has come. But the timing to cut now couldn't be more suspect, as Germany recently formed a special commission to decide when exactly the country intends to phase out coal production.
You see, brown coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel. And Germany, long a forerunner in the transition to renewable energy, knows that coal eventually has to go in order to protect the climate.
Energy future
But Germany is schizophrenic when it comes to energy. On the one hand, it had ambitious emissions reduction targets, and in past decades moved decisively to transition its own energy mix toward renewables.
Sonya Angelica Diehn leads the Environment Team at DW
On the other hand, and ever more over recent years, the German government has been caving in to the power of the coal lobby, and putting off the coal exit. This makes no sense in light of the fact that a coal exit is inevitable, especially as renewables quickly gain the upper hand as the cheapest source of energy.
Add to this that if RWE did log the forest and burn the brown coal underneath, that would blow Germany's entire carbon budget in terms of allowed emissions to prevent catastrophic climate change.
So the struggle in Hambach Forest centers around a basic question: What's more important, short-term profit or long-term well-being?
The outcome is likely to shape the future of energy in Germany: If the forest gets razed and the coal underneath burned, it's a signal that business as usual is likely to continue over years to come — that Germany will overshoot necessary emissions limits, and contribute to dangerous climate change.
But if the forest stays rooted and the coal stays in the ground, that could mark a genuine turning point for Germany's energy future.
'Business as usual' on the table
The activists holed up in treehouses have taken on a massive opponent: business as usual. The tree-sitters are by most accounts peaceful, idealistic people standing up for what they believe is right.
6 years of coal protest coming to an end at Germany's Hambach forest?
Activists have uprooted their lives to save a German forest from being sacrificed to a gigantic coal mine. Now, German police are overseeing the clearing of the Hambach forest as the plans for mining go ahead.
Image: DW/G. Rueter
Primal forest
At the heart of Europe, in western Germany, near the border to France and Belgium, a scrap of ancient forest holds thousand-year-old trees along with abundant wildlife. But there's another species living there in the forest as well — our own.
Image: DW/G. Rueter
Life among the treetops
About 150 people currently live in what's left of Hambach forest, many in makeshift tree houses. Although living in a tree house may appear idyllic, many of the environmental activists have uprooted their lives for the better part of six years — living without electricity and running water — to protect the forest, and take a stance against the power of the fossil fuel industry.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Bildfunk/C. Gateau
Evictions begin
Several hundred police officers accompanied RWE workers for protection as they visited the forest on Wednesday, September 5, to expel the protesters in preparation for clearing. Although the operation was mostly peaceful, one activist was arrested after resisting police.
Image: DW/I. Banos-Ruiz
Nonviolent resistance
Activists joke about their "dangerous weapons," such as an empty fire extinguisher. Just days before the police action on September 5, Herbert Reul, the interior minister for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, warned that police and RWE staff in the Hambach forest were dealing with "extremely violent left-wing extremists." Members of the protest group have denied Reul's description.
Image: DW/G. Rueter
Not the first forest confrontation
Over the years, police have clashed with protesters in the Hambach forest. In 2017, police employed pepper spray to disperse protesters in advance of planned logging. The looming eviction is likely to result in the largest confrontation there yet.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M.Becker
Trees for coal
Here is the result of a recent RWE clearing campaign, which ran from October 2016 to March 2017. In the background, the smokestacks of the Niederaussem power station can be seen. With a CO2 output of more than 29 million tons yearly, this is Europe's third-dirtiest power plant. Due to massive toxic emissions such as mercury and sulfur, it is also considered Germany's second-most-toxic power plant.
Image: Elian Hadj-Hamdi
'Critical turning point' for climate policy
"Clumsy" has lived among the treetops in the Hambach forest since the resistance against the RWE coalmine project began in 2012. He believes the battle over the forest is a critical turning point for German climate policy, and the government's decision is one between "giving in to the lignite hardliners, [or] protecting our life support basis on this planet."
Image: DW/G. Rueter
Small forest with big stakes
Only about 10 percent of the once sprawling Hambach forest has survived the mine's onslaught. What's left appears miniscule in comparison to the vast expanse of the mine, which already covers about 85 square kilometers (33 square miles). But environmentalists say the forest holds enormous ecological value, and is home to abundant and biodiverse ecology, including endangered animal species.
Ever-hungry coal industry
The Hambach mine, located between Aachen and Cologne, is Germany's largest open-cast mine. Here, RWE uses enormous excavators to extract brown coal, also known as lignite, from the earth. Lignite is among the fossil fuels that emit the most carbon dioxide when burned. What remains of Hambach forest is the last bastion in a long battle against the expansion of the mine.
Image: Michael Goergens
Save the forest, save the world
Environmental activists have undertaken nonviolent resistance against the RWE coal mine expansion for more than six years. Through their actions, they claim to not only want to save the Hambach forest from destruction, but also send a message to the world about the dangerous consequences of prioritizing fossil fuel extraction over important ecological sites.
Image: DW/G. Rueter
Global support
Activists from all over the world have supported the action by staying for days or weeks at a time. Over the past six years, activists have literally built up an alternative community within the forest. Although it is still unclear what exactly will happen in the struggle between the protesters and the fossil fuel giant, potential eviction is an ever-present possibility for the forest dwellers.
Image: DW/G. Rueter
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They love nature, and point out how biodiverse this patch of woods is. Hambach Forest is valuable because it's a still-standing reminder of the ancient forest that used to cover Germany and much of Europe.
So what do we as a society value more, and what do we want to see for our future: intact nature and sustainability, or fossil fuel profits and climate catastrophe? That's the core of their struggle.
Opponents point out that if the coal weren't mined, some several thousand jobs would be lost. Well, how many jobs, how many billions of euros, how many lives will be lost if climate change continues unabated? Germany's extreme-weather summer, with its crop losses of one-third this year alone, is a mere taste of what's to come if business as usual carries on.
Others argue the activists are wrong for trespassing and occupying private property owned by RWE. But just because something is illegal, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. It was illegal for women and people of color to vote in the last century. If nobody had stood up against that, it might still be.
Likewise, just because something is legal, doesn't make it right. The morally correct thing would be for the German government to intervene and stop RWE from chopping down Hambach Forest and burning the coal underneath.
This would send a signal to the world: Time to take a stand against the domination of fossil fuels, and finally shift our energy economies to a sustainable future.
I think the tree-sitters are brave. And I hope they win.
