Wald statt Asphalt

→Overview page for skillshare

Hello everybody,

From May 4^th until 11^th there will be the first “Wald statt Asphalt” Skillshare Camp in Dannenröder Forest!

A new section of the A49 motorway will run through the forest. Therefore many, partly very old leaves and conifers, which are still full of life at the moment, will give way to the cold asphalt. The planned so-called “compensation measures” clearly do not fulfil their purpose and definitely do not compensate for the loss of several hectares of a centuries-old mixed forest. Furthermore, a new motorway will not, as advocates hope, bring traffic relief to the affected villages and will only serve the capitalist interests of companies based in the nearby urban village such as “Ferrero” or “Fritz Winter”.

The forest has been occupied since the end of September 2019 in order to stop its destruction by the expansion of the A49 and to bring about a traffic which doesnt destroy the climate: freee public traffic on trains, bicycle and walking. By occupying the trees, the clearing work in this forest has effectively been stopped and suspended for at least one year. The activists will not tolerate inactively that living trees are killed in the Dannenröder forest for a failed traffic policy. As long as the occupation exists and beings are fighting there, there will be no highway in the Dannenröder Forest!

There are different ways to be part of the skillshare, e.g. participating in workshops, offering them yourself or just getting to know other great beings.

Come to Dannenrod forest, get to know the occupation, visit and organize workshops, lectures and concerts, we don’t want to maintain any knowledge hierarchies and pass on our skills to others. You are welcome to come along, join in, build barricades and live utopias, whether for a day, a week or forever. From juggling to building barricades, from lock picking to spoon carving, from clowning to shop lifting, from photography to lock-on, from action climbing to digital self-defense. The possibilities are numerous. We are happy about all workshop suggestions. The same goes for music.

To help us plan better, we are happy about event announcements, but you can also offer something spontaneously.

The Skillshare-Camp takes place directly in and around the forest and since the
sleeping place capacities are limited, please bring your own
Sleeping equipment with (tent, hammock, sleeping bag, …). If you don’t have sleeping stuff,
we’ll find another solution, don’t worry. Of course there is also
food – vegan and, if possible, saved food. Whether you have money or not is definitely not important. But we are happy about every support by material donations or money in order to realize the skillshare.

If you have any questions or would like to contribute a program item or would like to know more about the occupation, please send us an email to waldstattasphalt [at] riseup [dot] net (PGP). For frequently asked questions enter FAQ. Current information is available on mastodon https://todon.nl/@keinea49 and Nitter https://nitter.com/keinea49.

We are looking forward to seeing you!

See you soon in the forest,

’till danni 🙂

On the 12^th of October an article was published in the newspaper Taz about the Dannenröder Wald. Apart from informing the reader about the fact that treehouses have been constructed in the forest, the article mentions an invitation by the Homberg local Greens to their superior Tarek Al-Wazir, Hessen’s minister of mobility endowed with the decision-making power over the A49-question, to take part in a demonstration against the motorway construction. Al-Wazir declined, ‘referring to his green heart that is connected to the forest, but above all to the coalition agreement between CDU and the Greens, in which the continuation of the construction of the A49 is stipulated.’

In the following text we want to briefly return to and comment upon the article published in the Taz, more specifically the above-cited statement about Al-Wazir’s ‘green heart’. The occasion that prompts us to commit a blog entry to some minister’s vital organs is the following. Continue reading →

One of the biggest arguments, if not the only one, for sustaining the idea of the construction of a new highway in Hessen is that it is good for the „economy“, that it will bring working places to the region,…

It might be true that logistic centers will bring employment, that corporations will settle here using the area to expand their profits, that short term goals in that direction might be achieved and it might seem that „wealth“ is coming to this land in form of consumption capacity. It might seem strange if you have never thought it through, but all those things are the ones I oppose and fight against. We can talk about the danger to the forests, the farmlands and the water protected areas, but we should not miss the fact that that‘s just the surface of bigger and deeper problems that affect us all. Continue reading →