“It’s hectic here. The police are now coming up with a cherry picker”, says ‘Ed’ of the action group Save the Sterrebos on Tuesday at the end of the morning. He and four others are still hiding in and among the trees. “But we’re going to be taken out of here today. They are already cutting down further on.”
‘Ed’ (he does not use his real name) explains that things have accelerated due to an agreement between car factory VDL Nedcar and the local action group De Groene Sporenwolf. He has withdrawn his lawsuit with the Council of State. “We do not agree with that.”
Noise can be heard through the telephone. “Sorry, I really have to hang up now.” And then the connection is broken.
Police and fire brigade started the evacuation of the forest around sunrise on Tuesday morning with many people and equipment. Roads for miles around were closed. The authorities also drummed up riot police for any bigger protests.
The activists of Save the Stars Forest don’t just come out of the tree. But once the police catch them, they don’t put up any heavy resistance. So far, five arrests have been made.
Seven hectares of forest
VDL Nedcar wants to cut down seven hectares of forest owned by the company to make way for an extension of the production line. As a result, after the departure of the client BMW in 2023, a workable situation must be created for several customers at the same time (and therefore on more than one production line).
Campaigners from Save the Sterrebos occupied the forest a week and a half ago. They wanted to avoid felling trees. About 20 people were arrested before Tuesday morning. Despite depositions, some activists managed to settle in the forest in recent days. Hundreds of car factory workers held a counter-demonstration last Tuesday, supported by unions.
Read about the counter-demonstration: Sterrebos as a battleground for nature versus labour
The Sterrebos is one of the few green spaces in the narrowest part of Limburg – and the Netherlands. The Meuse, the Juliana Canal, the A2 motorway, a provincial road, a railway, villages and factories are located in an area that is barely five kilometers wide between Belgium and Germany. The area has cultural-historical value: it belonged to the lands of the noble Ruijs de Beerenbrouck family, which in 1918 provided the first Catholic and Limburg Prime Minister.
Best possible outcome
In the village of Nieuwstadt (3,200 inhabitants) located directly next to the VDL Nedcar site, Dirkjan van der Hoven, secretary of De Groene Sporenwolf, calls the agreement with the car manufacturer “the best possible outcome at the moment”. The agreement, which was announced on Tuesday, is the result of a Council of State procedure, in which the two faced each other. Because both parties could lose, they entered into direct negotiations with each other in December last year. They have now agreed on a move of 55 trees from Sterrebos to an adjacent area. In addition, a green compensation costing millions of euros will be added to the built-up area of Nieuwstadt, a noise barrier, a natural wall and a pedestrian bridge from the village to the Limbrichterbos.
The action group would have preferred the company to expand on the south side of its site. “That would have caused much less damage to the quality of life here, but that option was dropped years ago,” says Van der Hoven. “The Sterrebos has in fact already been lost since the Provincial Council gave permission for the felling in 2020.”
According to Van der Hoven, the procedure before the Council of State had three possible outcomes. „VDL Nedcar could have won, 4,200 jobs would have been saved and the Sterrebos would have been cut down. More unlikely was a victory for our action group. Then 4,200 jobs would have been lost, the plans would have been repaired and the Sterrebos would have flattened after all. Now both the 4,200 jobs and part of the Sterrebos will be saved, there will be nature compensation – with the participation of residents – and a number of important facilities for the village.”
Read alsoThe tree climber is too busy looking for comfort
Van der Hoven praises the pleasant no-nonsense atmosphere during the negotiations with VDL Nedcar, in which father and son Van der Leegte, the family behind the car manufacturer, sat down personally. “Actually, we should have sat around the table in this way a long time ago.”
John van Soerland, director of the company, in a press release distributed on Tuesday: “Although we had confidence in the decision of the Council of State, we are pleased that we have reached agreement with the objectors before the judge has had to make a decision. We value a good relationship with our local residents and the quality of life of the residential areas near our factory is close to our heart.”
VDL NedCar does not make any announcements about the progress of the search for new clients. The American Canoo, builder of electric buses, dropped out earlier. At the end of last year, VDL Nedcar confirmed serious talks with the American company Rivian, which markets electric passenger and delivery vehicles.