Experiences in the forest occupation
When I “Apfel” (Appel) heard about the threat of the clearing of the city forest and the resulting occupation, I really wanted to get to know the “Barrio (Spanish for “(city) quarter”) Hanni”. Environmental issues are very important to me personally and I wanted to get to know people who actively oppose environmental destruction.
I had never been to a forest occupation before. So I simply took the bus there, initially needing a bit of courage to walk past the large police presence right at the entrance into the city forest. Once in the forest, I immediately noticed the many signs that had been put up and the three tree houses. There were about ten people in the forest, some of whom were wearing masks. I quickly struck up a conversation with one person, who introduced himself as “Holz” (Wood), however all the people in the forest have a forest name.
Immediately after a short tour of the barrio, Holz showed me how to climb up to a tree house with a climbing harness. That was a completely new experience for me. I’d never climbed before and it was a lot of fun. After that, it was clear to me that I would like to spend the night in the “Hanni”.
When I arrived in the forest again two days later, I stayed there for 24 hours. In the meantime, the “living room”, which is the central meeting point in the forest, had already been set up next to the tree houses. There you can sit together comfortably, cook, eat and make music.
The first thing I did was help with “ground spotting”, i.e. helping to attach materials such as wooden boards, saws, screws etc. to the climbing rope, as a fourth tree house had just been build at a height of over twenty meters in a 200-year-old oak tree. The tree house was built by “professionals” who had already been involved in several forest occupations and had the necessary “know-how”.
Then I built a shelf with “Schlange” (Snake), a person from the citizens’ initiative, from branches and trunks that were already lying around in the forest. To do this, we had to saw the logs to size and fasten them together with tape to form a shelf. The many donated foods and cutlery found a new place directly behind the living room.
Throughout the day, different people kept coming to the forest, many of them donated all sorts of things, and very interesting political conversations often ensued. Journalists were also there, and sometimes the police came, but they disappeared again after a few minutes.
Towards the evening, we all sat together in a circle and did a check-in, i.e. we talked about how we were doing and discussed further possibilities for expanding the Hanni. After dinner, it was time to plan who would sleep in which tree house. I was allowed to sleep in the one that is accessible by ladder and doesn’t have to be climbed up with a climbing harness.
I was pretty exhausted from all the new impressions and the physical work and was looking forward to going to sleep soon. However, four of us slept on the platform and it was cramped and quite cold. It was only 5° at night and it wasn’t easy to sleep. That’s why I was a bit exhausted the next day.
However, two people in the camp had already cooked coffee and a very tasty hot soup, which lifted my spirits again. Despite the recurring rain showers, “the pros” continued to build the fourth tree house. But many also just relaxed in the living room and people came by again.
I went home in the late afternoon and was a bit tired from all the impressions, but also very happy about the new experiences. I particularly enjoyed the exchange with other people. The time outside in nature was also very good for me, although the stay was really not very comfortable. I can only recommend everyone to come along in person and get their own impression of the situation in the forest.
