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HAMBI STAYS : Press Release Jan. 17th, 2020

The news have reached us yesterday that the German government has decided that the Hambacher Forest should not be cut down. This is a statement of the Hambacher Forest Press Team:

This news brings us neither joy nor despair. We interpret this as part of a political strategy aimed at delegitimising the Hambacher forest occupation. In the following points we clarify this as an attack on the climate justice movement.

Mike from the Hambacher Forest says “I can’t accept that Hambacher Forest is used as a smokescreen to hide the ongoing ecocidal and imperialistic policy of the German state”

Contrary to what the government says, Hambacher Forest is not saved. The newly proposed plan of RWE will make the forest an island inside of the pit we have been fighting against. The ecosystem of the 12000 year old forest is dying because of the pumping of the ground water. When RWE fulfills its plan to dig around the forest, the situation will be drastically worse. If the edge of the mine, which is around 50 meters away from the forest currently, does not collapse before that, the forest will die of thirst. Furthermore, a forest ecosystem needs to be connected to the outside world, and it is especially true for the Hambacher Forest, which is 10% of the size it used to be. We don’t need to point out how ridiculous it is that RWE is getting paid 2.6 billion Euros for the destruction of villages and major habitats.

Our protest is not just about the forest, it is also about exiting coal now, and many more reasons for why Hambacher forest occupation is a crystalyzation point of the climate justice movement and the radical left wing. The fight in the Hambacher forest is a symbol in the fight against climate change, therefore we are saying that we have to leave coal now.

The new proposal is even worse than the one of the Coal commission. It amounts to setting the Paris Climate Agreement on fire. The final exit date of 2045 is completely unacceptable. It is also drastically too late that RWE is shutting down its power plants in 2038, while the energy company Uniper has been granted permission to burn blood coal from Columbia and Russia. The activist Nika says “We don’t need the exchange of lignite to blood coal. We need a radical system change now”.

The fight for a better future of us all has always been in solidarity with those who are directly affected. Therefore we will not accept the decision that the villages in Garzweiler 2 should be torn down, and as we are fighting for the Hambacher Forest we stand in solidarity with those who are fighting for their living space. Be it in the Rheinland, Russia, Columbia or elsewhere. Capitalism does not solve problems, it just sweeps them under the rug. The pressure on Hambacher Forest may be reduced, but it will increase elsewhere. This is clearly an attempt at pacifying and hollowing out a symbol. We, however, propose to expand the subversive energy beyond Hambacher Forest.

For further press contacts please contact the Hambacher Forest press team.

(via Hambi Bleibt!)