Free electricity in Australia, and the week's other eco wins
Key takeaways
- Germans save an ancient woodland from coal mining, Australia gives away surplus solar power, and how does a city become the world's best place for cyclists?
- For decades, environmentalists and locals had been campaigned for the forrest and even occupied treehouses high in the forest canopy to stop the felling, only to be evicted again and again.
- Meanwhile in the US, federal lands are being opened up to drilling and extraction, but some local communities are fighting back too.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
Germans save an ancient woodland from coal mining, Australia gives away surplus solar power, and how does a city become the world's best place for cyclists?
https://p.dw.com/p/5GXh2Australia produces a lot of solar energy Image: ACT Government Advertisement The Hambach forest stays After a decades-long fight, one of Germany's last remaining pieces of intact ancient woodland has been saved from coal-mine expansion. The remaining part of Hambach forest, between the western German towns of Aachen and Cologne will remain standing as the as the country phases out coal, the most polluting fossil fuel.
For decades, environmentalists and locals had been campaigned for the forrest and even occupied treehouses high in the forest canopy to stop the felling, only to be evicted again and again. In October 2018, some 50,000 people flooded the forest to protest plans to turn it into an open-pit mine — and eventually won a legal battle to halt the clearing.