A Lenten Devotion by Jenny Allen
…you shall be called the repairer of the breach…
Isaiah 58:12b
“My friend has been promoted from a tent to a tree house!” My daughter was excited for her former co-worker who is studying the activists in the Hambach Forest in Germany who have “occupied” trees there since 2012 for her doctoral thesis.
The area, near Cologne, is home to thirteen endangered species, and represents a rare, remaining sliver of a woodland ecosystem that once filled this part of the Rhine river plain. Since mining began in 1978, the Hambach has shrunk to only 10% of the original 13,500 acres. The rest was cleared to allow the extraction of “brown coal” or lignite.
The trees are felled and the forest floor torn up to reach the coal deposits, leaving long gashes of open earth. The lignite is burned in nearby power stations which are among the biggest carbon dioxide emitters in Europe. The activists want to close down these power stations sooner rather than later. As Germany pivots away from coal, which still provides about a third of the country’s electricity, and has a target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40% compared with 1990 levels by this year, Berlin needs to act urgently. Continued, indeed expanded, extraction of lignite makes no sense.
Several times the tree houses have been cleared and their occupants arrested but the activists keep returning to their perches. The battle for Hambach has brought the climate crisis into focus for many Germans by connecting intangible carbon emissions to something tangible and much loved. Wild forest is an important part of German culture, their understanding of what their country is. It’s difficult for many people to imagine protecting the climate, but it is much easier to imagine protecting the forest.
I am grateful for the holy work of these dedicated activists.