Meet the guardians of an old growth forest in Germany Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Oct 1 2020

Location: 

Germany

The Dannenröder Forest in central Germany, is known, affectionately, by those who are trying to protect it, as “Danni”. Danni is an old growth forest – whole sections of it have grown and evolved without direct human influence – but for the last four decades it has been threatened by the building of a new motorway which, if built, would cut this showpiece of sustainable forestry in half. This new motorway would lead to the fragmentation of the forest’s fragile ecosystems, the kind of fragmentation that has led to the rapid extinction of species in our lifetimes, and the rising perils of climate change.

To prevent the building of this motorway, protestors have taken to the trees of the forest itself, living for the past year in homemade treehouses, resisting eviction, and battling against the government. These events came to a head late last year when the government pressed ahead with the building of the motorway, brutally evicting the protestors and cutting down many trees.

In October 2020, photographer Joachim Mueller-Ruchholtz spent time among the activists of the Dannenröder Forest as they made their stand against the German government. Here he speaks to Benja and Glis (whose names have been changed to protect their identities) about their time in the forest…

It may be too simple a question but why you do it?
Benja: Because if we want to save our planet from being destroyed by greedy corporations we need to do more than just make our consumerism somewhat more sustainable. We feel the need to take our future into our own hands and not leave it to the so-called “Green Party” who puts profits of corporations over our lives. How far can one go? I feel like this movement has chosen a more or less very peaceful way of resistance.

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