Finalist: Social movements for 1.5
The photo series has accompanied environmental protests in Germany since 2015, with a focus on protests against lignite. In this context, the action form of forest occupation has gained great importance in Germany in recent years. Starting with occupations of open-cast lignite mines of the movement "Ende-Gelände", coal mining became a public issue. In this form of civil disobedience, activists shut down coal mines for several days. Starting from Hambacher Forst 2018, various forest occupations developed in Germany. First against the expansion of the Hambach coal mine. Then in 2020 in Dannenrod against the construction of a highway.
Currently in 2022 in Lützerath against the expansion of the Garzweiler open pit mine. This makes Lützerath the last place in Germany to be mined for lignite.
In all of these three occupations, Hambacher Forst, Dannenröder Wald, and Lützerath, activists have built large settlements of dozens of tree houses and built communities. Their goal is to prevent the clearing of the forest or the dismantling of the site. In this way, they make these places a symbol of resistance against the overexploitation of fossil resources and create the possibility to physically block this machinery in the places. Thus the occupations became centers of the radical environmental movement in Germany. So the activists are trying to keep the 1.5 degree limit of global warming.
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Tree house settlement "Nowhere" in the north of the Dannenröder Forest in late summer. A banner calls for an end of fossil capitalism. The Dannenröder Forest is a 250-year-old mixed forest in Hesse (Germany) and the region's drinking water reservoir. For the construction of the highway "A49", planned in the 1970s, the forest was cleared in large parts at the end of 2020. Already in October 2019, the forest was occupied by environmental activists who were fighting to save the forest and at the same time advocated for a change of the current transport policy. For this purpose, they built dozens of tree house settlements and many barricades on the planned highway route in the forest. The settlements became a place of an alternative way of life and a utopia for a life in harmony with nature. An alliance of local citizens' initiatives, environmental groups, young Fridays for Future activists and left-wing groups supported the protests. In mid-November 2020 the five-week clearing of the forest and the treehouses started. It was one of the largest German police operations in recent years. The clearing led to clashes between the police and activists and many activists were arrested.
