The Hambach forest and the Etzweiler village

I have to speak in the past tense because it is in 1984 the forest had an extension of approximately 37 square kilometers and, to date, it has lost more 90% of its extension; while the village in 2006 was disappeared from the map. All this not for a natural phenomenon but for vulgar human gain. We human beings are strange, we are even capable of eating the earth under our feet just to make money. In practice we dig our own grave and we are even pleased about it!

Essì because extracting lignite is a business that is still thriving, despite the clear connection between the climate crisis in which we find ourselves living and the combustion of fossil derivatives.

The promises of RWE, the German multinational that manages the mining fields of Tagebau Hambach, are of no use, which will restore the natural state of the places with a lake and a bucolic landscape when the extraction fields have been exhausted. There there was a forest from time immemorial, a village with a history, with people with their own stories. Everything is been swept away in a slow agony that has lasted for 40 years.

These days there is news of the protests from the population who, tired and exasperated by years of inconvenience, want the extraction to be stopped immediately. The image with which this article opens of the Nigerian The Times in which we see one of the fronts of excavation of the way in the foreground and a series of wind turbines in the background. Even in Nigeria they know something about the discomfort caused by the intensive extraction of raw materials en plein air.

In the comparison map below you can see the evolution of the territory around what remains of the forest thanks to two Sentinel 2 scenes: one from August 2016 and the other from last August.

Remarkable is also the evolution of the other mines present in the area. I would have liked to make a video of the column "A view from Space" but I didn't have the time. I will certainly address the topic of mining as soon as possible, also because it is There are many mines scattered all over the world with all their pros and cons and this has become clear. often spoken also through successful films such as "Blood diamond".

Returning to Hambach, probably Goya would have dedicated his "Saturn devouring his children" to us.

By Francisco Goya - [1], Public domain, Link