OSTERHOLZ – THE FOREST MUST REMAIN

A seemingly ever-growing waste-rock heap belonging to the “venerable,” traditional limestone quarry company Kalkwerke Oetelshofen requires, according to the company’s plans, more space.

The company has maintained business relations with RWE for many decades. Limestone is used, among other things, in RWE’s lignite-fired power plants for flue-gas desulphurisation; at Rheinbraun, limestone is also used in steel production.

For this purpose, five hectares of mature beech forest are to be cleared—an area equivalent to approximately ten football pitches.

A NO-GO in times of climate change.

What makes the situation even more striking is that specially constructed railway lines between the limestone works and RWE’s lignite-fired power plants have existed for decades and are still in operation.

These railway lines could be used to transport the waste material, which is increasingly becoming a space problem in Osterholz, by rail—for example, to the Hambach open-cast lignite mine. The necessary infrastructure already exists, and the Hambach mine is, of course, accustomed to handling enormous quantities of overburden.

To us, as in so many other places, the whole affair appears to be a POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCANDAL.

In November 2019, we expressed our solidarity with the local resistance. We travelled to Osterholz, spoke with local residents and activists, and made an artistic statement through our painting:

A statement for the preservation of the forest.
A statement for the trees.
A statement in support of peaceful, necessary resistance.