Me in front of the demonstration at the Hambacher Forst"
In West Germany there is a small forest that should be cleared for carbon coil, it's name is "Hambacher Forst".
Activists fight for years to safe that last piece of land from the brown coal excavators.
Taken from Twitter
Yesterday there was a curt decision to keep it at least for the next years.
Today there was a big demonstration and - as it turned out that the forest stays - a big party.
We were there and I want to show you some of the very deep impressions, that I got.
The demonstration organisation expected 20000 people. But when we arrived, we saw thousands of people coming from all directions:
We went (or tried to) to the stage, where some bands played music and some speakers encouraged to press on. There was even a speaker from Senegal who told us: "I want you to know, that the African friends are with you!"
Then they told us, that we are 50000 people demonstrating here for the forest. A big overwhelming feeling reached us. To every direction I looked, I saw thousands of people until the horizon:
We danced and sang and celebrated the victory of reason.
After that a huge part of the group walked into direction of the forest. There is a small area, where some people have planted new trees. I also buried some walnuts, as a sign for the future:
The forest is full of barricades. They are all handmade. People fight since years with mere hands against machines. It is like in the movies "Avatar" or "Starwars":
Then we came to the rim of the big excavator hole. Last week it was totaly forbidden to go to that area. But today we were just too many people and the police let us go.
Also here some small bands played music:
We went on to the rim. This is a feeling that is very hard to describe or to forget. This is historical.
We broke through all hurdles (political and here on this area) to reach a goal, that seemed yesterday so far away.
We were observed by a helicopter:
And this is, what they are doing to our nature. Here were villages, fields and forests before they came:
Maybe I sound to naive. We needed the carboin coil in the past for our electricity. But I have switched my electricity provider to 100% sustainable 15 years ago. Germany has more electricity than it needs. Sometimes we have to turn down the wind turbines, because we produce too much.
There are a lot of possibilities to enhance our storage capacities. We don't need carbon coil anymore, we - the whole world - need a structural change.
These are dinosaurs, and they are dying now:
Then we went back to our car. It was a long way, because a lot of streets were closed due to the huge crowd. We came along an old and closed highway, that now ends in the hole. A lot of years ago, I went there by car, now it is empty and lost. Strange feeling.
All in all we walked about 25000 steps today and are very tired.
But we are very glad to have experienced this great day in the Hambacher Forest.
Achim Mertens