After in the hambach forest, first of all, do not cleared, the device is a large-scale demo to a Festival of the environmentalists. According to organizers 50,000 people – much more than expected.
Further back is drummed, played the piano, juggles or champagne glasses made of plastic, but the closer you get to the big stage, the more concentrated the people to hear. Just Green calls-Chairman Anna Lena Baerbock down: “Starting tomorrow, a different Wind has to blow in energy policy.” On this Sunny October Saturday, a pleasant Wind on the edge of the hambach forest near Cologne, where so many protesters have arrived, kicking up some dust of the ground blows. Were announced 20,000 participants, had come, according to organizers 50,000.
Tens of thousands traveled to the hambach forest, created on the A4 between Cologne un Aachen temporarily for jam
And, although the arrival was in the small Village of Buir, a district of Kerpen for many of the protesters for patience: Instead of the usual 30 minutes, it took from the nearby Cologne ever four hours to get to the forest. Because a couple of people ran across the tracks, had to be set to the S-Bahn-traffic temporarily, the Shuttle buses, the organisers were hopelessly overcrowded.
The demonstration of the “save the forest had to stop, coal -” a short time before was still on the edge stood Two days earlier, police said security for the event reasons, or by application for a temporary injunction, the organizers enforced the right to demonstrate.
Clearing stop and the coal Commission
More important, however, a court decision, which was also on Friday and from the planned protests, a victory celebration was: The higher administrative court of Münster under the RWE said until the final court ruling, clearing the hambach forest. Thus, the environmental groups can hope for is still a good 200 acres of the Rest of the once more than 4000 hectares of forest area, which is supposed to fall to the brown coal mining to the victim. RWE expects a judgment year 2020, but the so-called coal Commission already announce in the coming months a timetable for the phasing out of brown coal.
Colorful Protest against brown coal mining
It also Left-Chairman Bernd Riexinger says: “In this rich Federal Republic, it must be possible to offer people a job that is destroying the environment,” he says on stage thousands of times the applause.
According to him, Michael Zobel, the for a good four years, forest walks offered by the hambach forest and became an activist for the preservation of the 12,000-year-old forest. Even if he had many visitors wishes to his next walk, similar to the Demo, says Zobel: “Please stay on the Trails and leave the forest to the left and to the right of its rest. He urgently needs.” Then he agreed with a loud “Hambi”in the speech choir.
From the reactor-Protest in the hambach forest
The hambach forest has become a Symbol for the entire energy policy of the Federal Republic of Germany, which remains in many respects behind the own pledge.
Susanne Erning-Stynen traveled from the lower Rhine to
For many protesters it is on this day, the effects of climate change, which is fired with brown coal electricity. There are many young people came, but also older.
One of them is Stynen Susanne Erning -. The retired teacher from Kleve on the lower Rhine, has already participated in the 80s in the demonstration against the “Fast breeder” in the neighboring Kalkar. The protest lasted so long, until the development has set new nuclear power plant in 1991. “As the police said on Thursday the Demo at the hambach forest”, so she tells, “I thought: now more than ever!”
“Nature is a human right”, says Philipp Gröber
That Erning-Stynen meets at the Demonstration in front of the forest, one of her former students, shows how the Symbol hambach forest people of all ages moving. Philip groeber-arrived from Cologne. Because “nature is a human right, which is not longer guaranteed, if it goes on like this,” says the 28-year-old educator. The mood he describes as “super happy”. “It could be that at the last Minute a couple of Talk rewritten to be,” says groeber, smiling.
First of all, only a stage win
Nevertheless, The preliminary clearing of the stop in the hambach forest is for many brown coal opponents more of a stage victory. From the Central German brown coal area near Leipzig, Ilana Krause arrived. You, as a sign of solidarity with the cleared tree house is a colorful painted tree house from Leipzig villages arrive on your Transporter. The tree house has two inscriptions: “Hambi” and “Pödelwitz remains”. Pödelwitz is according to Krause a 650 years old village, to make way for the open pit, up to 30 residents, the operator would have moved all the other Pödelwitzer already with money and with back-driven infrastructure for the move.
“Coal Diggers” Brand Eigenbau
Behind the tree house tractors are lined up, the first tractor in the series holds a self-built bucket-wheel, with which he looks like a smaller Version of the huge excavator, with the energy group RWE removes a few hundred meters away to the ground. He belongs to a Biolandhof in Neuss. Bauer, Ralf Ernst: “the hambach forest is a place in focus, which makes it easier for misguided energy policy, to denounce.” His colleague Hajo Köbis says: “We are not going to suffer if brown coal is no longer mined.”
A Festival of environmentalists
Above these rates, there is wide Agreement in the very colorful, diverse crowd on this October. On the stage there is a comparison to the Bavarian Wackersdorf, where civil protests in the 1980s prevented a nuclear reprocessing plant. Between the speakers, well-known Bands, such as the gunslinger, and the Dixi play-toilets on the edge of the field make in addition to their contribution to the hustle and Bustle feels like a Festival.
Bands were responsible for the festival mood in front of the hambach forest
The sun is low, as the people on the way home. As the departing protesters on the highway bridge motorists back to cheer, honk the horn from the bottom encouragingly. Also in the evening, the police have to seal off the Buirer station temporarily, the rush is “extreme”, says local residents, the police were surprised. A day like today, the small Buir has never experienced.