Amid the flags and banners and all those young people shouting “Revolution!” shout, 71-year-old Har Pluijmakers cannot suppress a smile. With his plush and dark blue hooded jacket, he is just about the least striking appearance in the mixed bag of activists. But without him the entire demonstration would not have taken place, then the Netherlands might not even have known about the endangered Sterrebos in Born in Limburg.
“Oh, the mayor even closed the road!” Har Pluijmakers is amazed to see this Sunday afternoon how he, together with about two hundred demonstrators, under police escort, turn onto the provincial road N276 and walk to the forest where the activists of Red het Sterrebos have been hanging in the trees for eight days now. “I’m really looking forward to being allowed to do this,” says Pluijmakers with twinkling eyes.
He also walked here on Thursday. Then across the footpath, “with fifteen men.”
Har Pluijmakers is a local resident and has been visiting the old oak forest for forty years. He walks the dog there, does bird counts and because so few people come there, he says it is an ‘El Dorado’ of animals. When he heard of the possible cover due to expansion plans of the adjacent car factory VDL Nedcar, he sounded the alarm. Pluijmakers was once a fanatic campaigner for the Fauna Protection and in 2005 experienced the tree occupation in the Schinveldse Bossen up close. The forest would be cut down because it was on a flight path for AWACS aircraft from a NATO base and action group GroenFront managed to save a number of hectares after an occupation of five weeks.
Just do her needs
And so Pluijmakers sent an email to the same GroenFront more than a year ago, asking them to take action to preserve the Sterrebos. “And one thing led to another.”
The resistance initially proceeded with flyers, petitions and demonstrations. But when that proved insufficient and the deadline approached – at the end of this month the Council of State will decide on the expansion plans – the activists pulled out the ultimate means: a tree occupation.
“Hey, wait a minute.” Tree climber ‘Ed’ has to put his phone down for a moment. “I’m sitting on something… Yes… need rope? I’m coming!”
It takes some getting used to again. For a few days Ed – as he calls himself, the activists do not want their illegal activities to be named in the media – alone in a tree. Yes, first with colleague Lou. But she had sailed down at night to relieve herself at a time when the VDL guards, who are constantly walking around in the forest, were not paying attention, she thought, after which two appeared from behind a tree with flashlights and grabbed them by the collar. was caught. After that only Ed and further on, in the poplar forest, Maarten still hung in the tree.
Seven activists have been added since one day, including four in Ed’s tree. And even though he is sitting in a big thick oak tree in which he has built a nice plateau with branches at a height of ten meters, it still takes a while to adjust and search for a new balance.
How does he get through his days up there? “Well, everything in the tree is moving super slow. We only have a little rope with us and the floor of branches is not level; you have to hold onto everything, or tie a knot. And if there is a strong wind, like last week, you have to tie everything up even better.” Yesterday, for example, it took him an hour and a half to throw a piece of string with a piece of wood into another tree. He succeeded, so that he can now move to the other tree with a crank to make a tree house with sail there too, and there is more room for the other occupiers. “Creating comfort. I work on that all day long.”
We keep it peaceful, as we want the world to be
Spokesperson for activists
‘Ed’ is a thirty-something who gave up his artificial intelligence studies to campaign for nature and the climate. “Hey, can you climb?” he was asked when he walked into the Schinveldse Bossen in 2005. And the next question was ‘do you want to learn it?’ He received climbing training like many of the activists. “You learn to slide up and down the trunk with the climbing rope. That is the most basic technique.” Ed specialized in climbing and was later involved in a forest occupation at the Efteling to prevent the expansion of the amusement park and several occupations in Belgium against the expansion of industry. Sometimes the actions are in the name of GroenFront, an action network with radical ecological and anarchist principles. But the activists of Red het Sterrebos are also affiliated with Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future, Code Rood, Internationale Socialisten.
The Battle of Amelisweerd
In 1982, ‘The Battle of Amelisweerd’ was the first forest occupation in the Netherlands that inspired activists. Dozens of huts, high in the trees, to stop the construction of the A27. A huge police force put an end to it and the forest was cut down the same day. Internationally, the forest occupation was best known for the Earth First! movement in the US and later in the UK. tree sitting proved more effective than roadblocks in protecting a forest from felling. In addition, the most radical among the activists also drove nails into the trees that jumped out when someone put a chainsaw in them.
Red het Sterrebos does not want to go that far, emphasizes a spokesperson for the action group. “We keep it peaceful, as we want the world to be.”
A forest occupation is mainly a cat-and-mouse game and in Born it has been played all week. The Sterrebos is constantly surrounded by police and security officers from the car manufacturer and sometimes activists are arrested, after which new ones slip into the forest, into the tree. It has been agreed with the police that the activists may bring food to the occupiers once a day. And yes, they can also do their business in a bucket at the top of the tree, but Lou needed some privacy. She is disappointed, she told the demonstrators this Sunday afternoon.
But such a ‘blunder’ is not so strange for the PR of the action group. It helps generate media attention and that’s what matters. “Attention creates support,” says the spokesperson. “And you need public support for such an action.” That is why all the climbers’ experiences are extensively shared on the website; including when Ed accidentally dropped his spoon from the tree. And the demonstration today, where they walk past the tree climbers to show support, the group shares on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok.
“A lot more professional than in my time,” says Har Pluijmakers as the demonstrators approach the forest. Many voices shout “Power to the people!” and Pluijmakers looks around in amazement. “Splendid.”
In his day, campaigning was more for small groups. Yes, he also has a whole scrapbook at home with campaigns that made it to the media, such as the time when fireworks scared the animals away during the goose hunt. “But this is much more organized.”
After that one e-mail to GroenFront, Pluijmakers didn’t know what hit him. That GroenFront turned out to be an entire network. Groups formed and those groups became an organization. “And now…”
His wooden bungalow in Susteren is now the headquarters of the action group. Pluijmakers, who lives there alone with his dog, serves the coffee while dozens of people walk in and out every day. They support the tree climbers with their own cooking team, a legal team, a media team and some of them sleep in his living room. “There is rest, laughter, crying. All young people.” Beaming: “And it all takes place in my house.”
„Climate justice” shouts the crowd. Pluijmakers raises his umbrella. “Climate justice!”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of February 7, 2022
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