Blockade against industrial wind project in Danish wilderness

July 26 – Police in Den­mark detained six envi­ron­men­tal activists on Tues­day protest­ing the felling of trees in a for­est to make room for a research cen­tre for wind tur­bines.

Pro­test­ers said they were not opposed to the cen­tre, but to the loca­tion.

The test cen­tre is meant to fur­ther Denmark’s posi­tion as world leader in wind pow­er, com­mon­ly seen as envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly renew­able ener­gy as it con­sumes no fos­sil fuels and pro­duces no emis­sions.

The protest began 10 days ago at Thy in windy north­west­ern Jut­land where Denmark’s wind indus­try aims to test giant tur­bines up to 250 metres high (820 feet).

“We are not against the cen­tre, we are not against the wind indus­try — on the con­trary,” Kent Klemme­sen, chair­man of the cam­paign against the project, told Reuters. “We are against the loca­tion, because we feel there are far bet­ter alter­na­tives.”

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Thurs­day morn­ing, 15 July 2011, the local Dan­ish police gave up remov­ing the activists who since Fri­day, 15 July 2011, have pre­vent­ed the cut­ting down of for­est to make room for the planned Nation­al Test Cen­tre for 250 metres high wind­mills in Thy, North­ern Jut­land [Den­mark].

Ten police offi­cers turned up to end the block­ade, but with­drew when it turned out that there were more activists than expect­ed. The pro­tes­tors are camp­ing in the for­est area where the author­i­ties intend to cut down the trees to cre­ate the right wind con­di­tions in the Test Cen­tre. “We shall be back in greater num­bers,” the police said.

The Test Cen­tre will be sit­u­at­ed between a pro­tect­ed bird sanc­tu­ary, a so-called Ram­sar area, and a Natu­ra 2000 area. The Dan­ish Soci­ety for Nature Con­ser­va­tion finds that the law regard­ing the Test Cen­tre vio­lates the Euro­pean Union (EU) Habi­tat Direc­tive, and has brought the case before the EU Com­mis­sion who has request­ed a detailed state­ment from the Dan­ish gov­ern­ment. Fur­ther­more, a local asso­ci­a­tion has filed a case against the Dan­ish State.

Fri­day, 15 July, the bird breed­ing sea­son end­ed and by mid­night the Dan­ish author­i­ties intend­ed to start cut­ting down the for­est. Through­out the day, the local pop­u­la­tion protest­ed against the demo­li­tion of one of Denmark’s last wilder­ness area.

The activists sim­ply laid down in front of the author­i­ties’ machines to pre­vent the cut­ting down to start. They are stay­ing in the area in tents, day and night. The rul­ing of the EU Com­mis­sion is expect­ed with­in a cou­ple of weeks. The activists demand that the cut­ting be post­poned until the rul­ing of the EU Com­mis­sion and the ver­dict of a Dan­ish court have been made pub­lic.

The demon­stra­tion in Thy has no cen­tral orga­ni­za­tion, but arose spon­ta­neous­ly. A spokesman for the activists appealed for sup­port and assis­tance from both Europe and the rest of the world—support as soon as pos­si­ble.

For more info, con­tact Peter Skeel Hjorth, spokesman of EPAW in Scan­di­navia and the Baltic States. Email: peter@skeelhjorth.dk Phone: +46 708 166521 Or Alek­sander Søn­der. Email: aleksander.soender@gmail.com Phone: +45 26160630

UPDATE & MORE BACKGROUND 7/26/2011: “Camp has been shut down again. Still there are peo­ple mon­i­tor­ing the for­est actions and report­ing them… The wind­mill com­pa­ny first want­ed to set­tle the camp on a place where the mil­i­tary is train­ing for Afghanistan. Because the mil­i­tary argues that they are in war, they did not led the test cen­ter be built there. So the last nature reserve in Den­mark has to be vic­tim­ized for this project. This isn’t demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly vot­ed, and the legal issue at the Euro­pean cout hasn’t been decid­ed. Still the work­ers already start­ed cut­ting down. And the police are still present.” —From an anony­mous source on the front­lines

For a longer list of “play­ers” ben­e­fit­ing from, and/or invest­ed in, this project go here

For some pro-indus­try lies promis­ing great­ness and fur­ther infor­ma­tion on this region and this enor­mous wind ener­gy project also vis­it here

 

Pro­test­ers argue that the effects of the huge wind­mills on human and ani­mal life have not been stud­ied ade­quate­ly and the 1,200 hectares (2,965 acres) of for­est should be pre­served.

Though tree felling has begun, Amos Sten­ner, an activist who spent five hours up in a tree on Tues­day, said he was not giv­ing up. “It is very pos­si­ble, that I will go up a new tree tomor­row,” he told Reuters.

The test cen­tre project is run by the Dan­ish Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty DTU, with sup­port from indus­try, includ­ing wind tur­bine man­u­fac­tur­ers Ves­tas and Siemens and state-owned DONG Ener­gy.