Nothing to eat anymore, just drink water. Giel Boes from Eindhoven is going in a hunger strike this week to draw attention to trees. “Here the trees have a damn good thing, but I wish that is the case everywhere.”
Monday is the day, then goes Giel in Hunger strike. He wants more attention to nature and hopes to raise as much money as possible for planting trees and protecting forests. “Our trees are the lungs of the earth, they are extremely important.” Giel is going on strike because, according to him, every tree must have ‘damn good’.
He lives in the center of Eindhoven. “I think it’s great that this is a green city. Look here at the city walk park, it is wonderful to walk around here.” As a climate mayor of the city, Giel is proud of Eindhoven. “De Dommel gets more and more space and there is really a lot of attention for greenery.”
“The world is larger than Eindhoven.”
As an Eindhoven citizen and climate mayor, he is therefore satisfied with Eindhoven. Yet Giel goes into a hunger strike. He wants to raise money with this. “The world is larger than Eindhoven. With the money we are going to plant ten thousand trees, protect 25,000 square meters of tropical rainforest and install a food forest of five thousand square meters.”
Giel has already prepared for his hunger strike on Sunday. And anyone who thinks he has eaten himself completely is wrong. “No, I didn’t work in spareribs yesterday. I started phasing out before. For example, I hadn’t eaten eighteen hours yesterday, so that my body could get used to it.”
From Monday he is planning to no longer eat solid food, only ‘soup and juice’. Wednesday or Thursday he also stops with that and only drinks water. “And that is quite exciting with this warm weather.”
“I would like to give my life for it, but then I can’t do anything for the trees anymore.”
A ‘hunger strike’ sounds very intense, Giel admits. “I consciously opted for this word and not for ‘fasting’. How we deal with nature is also very intense, so the trees deserve this attention.”
Giel would like to get out of the strike alive. “I tend to go to the extreme sometimes. I would like to give my life for it, but then I can’t do anything for the trees anymore.” The aim of the promotion is to raise 25,000 euros. Giel has no idea how long he will last.