Destruction from 2 days of clear-cutting

During Monday and Tuesday over 10 acress of millenarian 12,000 year old Hambacher Forest has been cut. Going into that area is a sad, sureal and infuriating experience.

It is estimated that if the present rates  of global deforestation continue(an area the size of Belgium disappearing anually) only about 10 percent of the global forest will remain by 2030. The estimates of carbon dumped into atmosphere from the deforested wood and humus biomass alone is about 17 percent of total global emissions.

When climate change is looked at as a business opportunity in a growing field of geo-engineering, false and non-tried solutions of carbon sequestration that are used as justification to continuing to dump CO2 into the atmosphere, it is the forests and trees that have been and remain the best and natural converters and sequesterers of carbon.

Obviously if their financial value is greater than ecological awareness, and foresight of local, state and judicial institutions their biodiversity remains at risk.  The financial value of tons of climate, atmosphere and water-table destructive lignite under the forest floor only sways the scales of “justice” in the direction of the profit it brings to RWE not to the impact it is having and will continue to have on future generation.   Even the global disaster it is bringin on is looked as a financial opportunity.  In this context the outcome of the delayed legal decission is rather obvious so:

Pack Your Gear and Get Ready an Join Us to Help Defend The Climate and Hambi!!

System Change not Climate Change – Hambi Must Stay!!!

 

Continue ReadingDestruction from 2 days of clear-cutting

Start of deforesting and evictions

According to police, RWE will start on monday clearing work in the Hambach forest. We hope and know that as many people as possible will be in the Hambach forest from Monday morning 3:00 clock to defend it.

Correction: it started already Saturday, Nov. 25th. See http://hambachforest.org/blog/2017/11/25/live-ticker-to-the-start-of-the-deforesting-season

We assume that this year they intend do a complete eviction (all tree houses + meadow occupation).
Because it is impossible to enforce this year’s clearing without evicting tree houses, we are prepared for it. We’ll prevent the deforesting! Here are some suggestions:
The last clearing season has shown that 2-3 weeks are enough to destroy about 70 hectares of forest. If you have the opportunity to come over for the next few weeks, then do so! You are needed here more than ever. Here on the spot we need people who occupy the clearing area as extensively as possible. Temporary tree occupations with mobile platforms are prepared and we will provide you with all the material and equipment you need. But also people who can help providing the tree houses, help with press and public relations work and provide emotional support are incredibly important. Since it may be that especially weekdays police in the forest is present, you can call before to ask if it is possible to come into the forest without being checked by police. Every Sunday at 9:00 clock begins an action and climbing introduction. Meeting point is the round house in the meadow.
If it is not possible for you to come for a week or more, you’ve got still the opportunity to be here for one action. For example, you could use an affinity group to prepare a blockade on the access roads (see action map) by which the clearance vehicles come.
Right now it is important to stay up to date and to make known what is happening here as widely as possible.

Continue ReadingStart of deforesting and evictions

Spontaneus Demonstration Following Cologne Courts Pro-RWE Decission

The ongoing court case to stop RWE from cutting one of the last remntants of ancient Hambach Forest took place today in Cologne.  The decission was postponed from Monday to Friday to possibly reduce number of supporters showing up in court, resulting in the same number of about 40+ attending  the trial.  The expected biased pro-coal verdict was read out rather quickly empting a court of sad, some crying and many expecting that precise outcome and getting ready for another winter of repression and resistance. The BUND fur Natur which originated the case against the RWE was hit with the costs of the trial while in the hallway the company bigwigs basked in the lights of TV crews as their power plants pumped more mercury, CO2 and particulates into the atmosphere, poisoning, emptying and destroying communities and habitats.  In response to this not just injustice but a mockery of justice and pure capitalist spectacle a demonstration with many banners, signs and a mobile treehouse info-point has formed and walked to the Cologne Cathedral and Train Station, with chants calling for Climate Justice, Saving and Remaining of Hambacher Forest and Stopping of Coal.  When arriving at the traditional location for manifestation and actions on the steps in between the “Dome” and the trainstation, speaches of solidarity with the forest were made by supporters and call for resistance voiced by Hambi Folks.

After 5 years of occupation this is a difficult and at the same time mobilizing call for the Hambacher Forest Struggle.  Difficult as we are about to face another winter of deforestation, and the biggest lignate clima-killer hole in Europe getting yet larger at the expense of this priceless forest and now also being a home to over twenty treehouses and 5 Barrio occupations.  This is also a mobilizing moment as never before have there been so much attention at the climate struggle in the Rhineland coal mining region with many years of persistent resistance, with Climate Camp, Ende Galaende and decentralized actions against this planetary monstrosity of injustice and polution that RWE working in tandem with local state instutions symbolizes.  Mobilizing even more so now because of recent state imposed false and destructive solutions offered at COP23.  As the realization daunts that we are the last line of defense against a future of climate, food and ecological collapse, self-organized support groups have been forming in Bonn, Cologne and Achen. Preparing demonstrations, actions, info-points and support and resupply visits to The Forest.

Also even though the number of people in the Forest have swelled recently a constant call goes out for people to organize in affinity groups in your locations and  support by journeying to the Forest or through remote solidarity actions.  If your are in one of the surrounding towns and would like to be part of the solidarity group just send an email containing in the subject line town name and what type suport function would be possible for you to HambacherForst@nullRiseup.net

In Solidarity with all Anti-Post-Colonialist, Anti-Extractionist and Anti-Authoritarian Struggles World-Wide.

Hambi Bleibt!!

Continue ReadingSpontaneus Demonstration Following Cologne Courts Pro-RWE Decission