The police showed up out of nowhere. It was shortly after midnight in the wee hours of Tuesday morning and 13 activists from environmentalist group Robin Wood were bedded down for yet another night in the branches of a 200-year-old beech tree in Dresden. They were there to prevent the tree from being sacrificed for a controversial new bridge being built over the Elbe River in Dresden. But the end was nigh.
Black-clad, helmeted cops wearing balaclavas swept in as other units blocked streets leading to the tree. Outfitted with a boom lift, ropes and saws, the police scaled the tree and pulled the activists out. Twelve of the 13 were taken into custody along with over 20 other demonstrators. The protest -- which had seen environmentalists nesting in the big old tree's branches since Dec. 12 -- had come to an end. A short time later, the tree was cut down.
"The police tried to clear the tree last week but were unable to," Ute Bertrand, press spokeswoman for Robin Wood, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "The city told us they wouldn't try again."
On Monday night, though, Robin Wood heard whisperings that something was up. But the police came earlier than they expected, said Bertrand. By the time the group could notify supporters by text message, the roads were blocked off, preventing more demonstrators from gathering. A small protest of about 100 demonstrators on the street in front of the tree was quickly broken up by the police.
Robin Wood's primary interest was saving the tree, but it was the most spectacular of a number of demonstrations recently undertaken in an attempt to prevent the construction of the new bridge. The €160 million ($237 million) project will, say supporters, solve Dresden's inner-city traffic congestion problems, but it will also cut through the Elbe Valley, endangering the site's designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. UNESCO has already placed the site on its "red list" of places that are at risk of losing their status.
Last summer, it looked like the so-called Waldschlösschen Bridge might not be built at all. A Dresden court halted construction due to the presence of endangered lesser horseshoe bats at the site. Bridge designers were ordered to come up with more "insect-friendly" lighting.
Construction, though, has resumed -- the beech tree was felled to make way for a road that will eventually provide access to the bridge when it is finished in 2010. But the controversy surrounding it continues. On Monday, bridge opponents announced a new signature-gathering campaign in an effort to force another public referendum on the project. In 2005, a referendum found that 68 percent of the voters were in favor of the project, but that was before it was known that the valley's World Heritage Site status -- a major draw for thousands of tourists each year -- might be lost. The numbers of those opposed to the project have since risen dramatically.
Organizers of the referendum effort have proposed the city build a tunnel instead. They claim to have consulted numerous experts, all of whom say that a tunnel would be technically feasible and would not cost more than the bridge project. Twenty-thousand signatures are necessary to force a second referendum.
Robin Wood, for its part, likewise vows to keep fighting. Even though they have no further plans to occupy trees at the site, they are supporting the signature-gathering campaign. "Our protest will continue," Bertrand said. "Too many people have had their hearts into this fight for us to give up now. The last word has not yet been spoken."
cgh/dpa/AP
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