From the article:
The 12,000-year-old Hambach forest has lived through many eras, but perhaps none as consequential as the last half-century.
Locals and environmentalists have been fighting for 50 years to keep the woodland — which sits between the western German towns of Aachen and Cologne — from becoming an open-pit coal mine. At times, protesters occupied the area, living in treehouses among the towering canopies to protect against the threat of chainsaws.
Now the fight is finally coming to a close, with about 14% of the original forest still intact. In June, the local government announced the remaining woods will be protected permanently and turned into a nature conservation area.
“The climate movement has won the battle,” said Dirk Jansen, of BUND, the German branch of the Friends of the Earth environmental group. He spent decades fighting for the forest.
Hambach is one chapter in a much bigger story, as similar clashes between governments, private developers and citizens are playing out around the world — including in the US. There, public lands are being clawed back at an unprecedented rate for oil and gas extraction.
“We seem to be moving aggressively in the opposite direction,” Lincoln Larson, who studies outdoor recreation and public lands at North Carolina State University, told DW.