As of: February 29, 2024, 7:39 p.m
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Activists from the “Stop Tesla” initiative stand with smoke flares in front of a banner with the inscription “Water is a human right!” in a pine forest near the Tesla Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg plant.
© Patrick Pleul/dpa
The protest against Tesla is increasing.
Activists are mobilizing against the planned expansion and occupying a piece of forest.
This is reminiscent of another environmental protest.
Grünheide - Environmentalists are protesting on tree houses against Elon Musk's only European Tesla car factory in Grünheide near Berlin.
Resistance to the US electric car manufacturer's flagship project is increasing.
According to the “Stop Tesla” initiative, around 100 activists occupied a forest near the factory since Thursday night to protest against the planned expansion of the site for a freight station and storage areas.
The group built tree houses on the approximately 120 hectare area that is to be cleared.
Her main concern is protecting the water.
The scene brings back memories of the protest against the Hambach Forest a few years ago, which escalated.
The police will not break up the action for the time being.
The protests could continue as a multi-day meeting, initially until March 15 with the option of an extension, said police spokesman Roland Kamenz.
A notice of requirements is in the works - this could be a ban on entering the nearby railway facilities in order to rule out danger.
In the forest next to the Tesla factory, environmental activists have built around eight tree houses, the highest at around eleven meters high.
According to their own statements, they don't want to leave so quickly.
A helicopter flies over the area.
“We want to stand in the way of destruction,” says the spokeswoman for the “Stop Tesla” initiative, Caro Weber.
According to her, environmental activists from all over Germany are there.
Many are covered with hoods or scarves over their faces.
They report that they were experienced in climbing, in the brown coal village of Lützerath and in the Hambacher Forest in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Occupiers are in the forest near the Gigafactory
The mood seems peaceful after a frosty night.
A field kitchen has been set up.
Hot water bottles are available for the night.
Thick climbing ropes, hooks and helmets hang everywhere.
Several hours after the action in the forest became known, it is unclear whether the police will intervene.
A police spokesman said it would first be checked whether there was a violation of the assembly law.
The police are talking to the tree squatters.
The forest between the Tesla train station and the factory is freely accessible and, according to the police, is a state forest, so it does not belong to Tesla.
One unrolls a banner: “Water is a human right” is written on it in huge letters.
There are posters hanging in the forest about the consequences of lithium extraction for batteries.
“Clean cars are a dirty lie” is one slogan.
Activists from the Robin Wood alliance have attached a wooden platform in one of the treetops under the motto “Forest instead of monster factory” where climbers can linger.
They are demanding that Tesla, the municipality, the state and the federal government do everything they can to stop the expansion and promote a mobility transition.
Occupiers want to support Tesla critics
The activists, some of whom have put on colorful wigs, shout “Grünheide remains”.
A woman sitting in the tree house says she has been here for two nights.
On the wood of their cobbled-together hut, which sways back and forth, it says: “Forest instead of asphalt”.
She was also there at Hambacher Forest.
The protest is important because she believes that a Tesla expansion will happen despite the negative citizen vote.
“I’ll stay here for now.”
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Almost two thirds of the citizens of Grünheide in Brandenburg voted against a development plan for the planned expansion in a residents' survey.
“Our main concern is the drinking water protection area,” says activist Weber.
The local council is expected to decide on the development plan in May.
The citizens' vote is not legally binding, but is considered an important signal.
The citizens' initiative Grünheide supports the protest on tree houses and called on Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) to visit the activists.
Hundreds of kilometers further to the west lies the Hambacher Forest between Cologne and Aachen.
It is considered a symbol of the protest against coal and was scheduled for clearing in 2018 to give the energy company RWE the opportunity to mine the lignite underneath.
The threatened destruction of the ancient forest with tall, giant trees mobilized great resistance.
It cost the police many weeks and millions of euros to dismantle 86 tree houses and dismantle the camps underneath.
A young journalist died when he broke through the boards of a suspension bridge between two tree houses and fell 15 meters.
When the eviction was almost complete, the clearing was temporarily banned by court order.
What does Tesla want to build on the expanded area?
At first it is peaceful in Grünheide.
But the protest against Tesla, which has been going on since the construction work, has increased.
Conservationists and citizens' initiatives are against the factory and against the expansion.
Tesla sees advantages for the region and wants to relieve freight traffic with the factory station.
The expansion should also be seen against the background that Tesla wants to expand production on the existing site and double the planned 500,000 cars per year to one million.
On Friday, the Strausberg-Erkner water association wants to discuss at an extraordinary meeting whether it will stop wastewater disposal at Tesla.
The car manufacturer warns in a letter that is available to the “Tagesspiegel” and the dpa: “Such a decision causes millions of dollars in damage every day.”
The protest with tree houses is a new stage in the resistance against the car manufacturer, which is considered a driving force in Brandenburg for six percent economic growth in the first half of 2023 and has so far brought around 12,500 jobs to the Brandenburg sand.
However, the activists are not the first tree-based critics against Tesla: almost exactly four years ago, the police took two women from trees on the site of the planned factory who wanted to take action against the clearing at a height of six to eight meters.
Tesla was allowed to clear the forest ahead of schedule.
Even two environmental associations were unable to prevent this in court.
The no vote in the citizen survey on the expansion plans is not only creating a good mood among environmentalists: Italy is hoping that the US company will settle there.
Economy Minister Adolfo Urso said they had been in discussions with Tesla for several months.
dpa