BERLIN, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- German police are continuing with the demolition of treehouses built by environmental activists in the RWE-owned Hambach forest, a police spokesperson told press on Monday.
According to the spokesperson, 28 out of an estimated 50 forest dwellings had been cleared so far in an ongoing operation which witnessed intermittent clashes between security forces and activists. While the vast majority of at least 4,000 protestors who marched in Hambach forest on Sunday to protest its felling did so peacefully, police also reported 14 arrests and eight cases in which individuals had been injured.
Police complained that some protestors had used "massive force" in an attempt to break down barricades erected to cordon-off the clearance area from the public. As a consequence, security officers were "forced to use physical violence, clubs, and tear gas, to prevent an uncontrolled entry into the danger zone of the forest." Up until Sunday evening, individual protestors attempted to return to the treehouses from which they had been removed earlier.
The Hambach forest forms part of a property owned by German energy giant RWE which comprises the world's largest open pit brown coal mine. The Essen-based company plans to cut down 100 out of a remaining 200 hectares of woodland from October 2018 onwards in order for the site to be used for mining operations
Environmental activists have vehemently resisted the development for years by moving into the threatened area, setting up makeshifts camps and erecting barriers. In late August, large numbers of police already advanced on the occupied forest to protect RWE workers removing obstacles and "obvious trash" on the one hand and collect evidence on the construction of illegal dwellings on the other.
The treehouse settlement has become known as a symbol for grassroots resistance against coal power generation and deforestation across Europe. Police and local government authorities officially justify the ongoing clearance operation with concerns over fire safety and the structural integrity of the buildings there.
Earlier last week, local government authorities ordered the inhabitants to leave their dwellings peacefully within 30 minutes before they would be removed forcibly. The police operation is one of the largest to be recorded to date in North Rhine-Westphalia and is supported by reinforcements from other German states as well as special forces commando.
In response, the group of occupying activists, known as "Operation Undergrowth", said that they would offer non-violent resistance against the clearance. A member of group told the German press agency (dpa) that some forest occupiers had by now lived in Hambach for six years. "For many, this is their home", the treehouse resident said.
"Operation Undergrowth" and several German environmental organizations have repeatedly urged the federal government in Berlin to impose a moratorium on the forest felling for coal power generation throughout the ongoing work of a special commission on Germany's planned phasing out of the technology. Organized resistance against the displacement and resettlement of homes, air pollution and environmental destruction caused by the "migrating mine" in Hambach forest started as early as the 1970s and has continued unabated ever since.
Nevertheless, Herbert Reul (CDU), interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, has defended the eviction of the forest houses in the face of criticism. "The state must assert itself," Reul told the radio station "Deutschlandfunk", arguing that the authorities were now finally taking action against an illegal occupation that had lasted for years.
Reul has previously described "Operation Undergrowth" as a group of "extremely violent left-wing extremists" who had travelled to Hambach forest from across Germany and Europe. "These self-declared environmental activists do not want to save tress, but rather seek to abolish the state", he said.
Police told press on Monday that the situation in the forest was currently calm as of Sunday night. However, activists had begun staging further sit-in during the morning hours (CET) in a bid to obstruct the treehouse clearance.
