Saving a forest – Lappersfortbos
Yesterday, a friend of mine and I went to visit the Lappersfortbos in Brugge, where activists have been occupying a forest for seven months already so that won’t be turned into office buildings or a car park.
The people living there were very friendly, one of them gave us a tour of the area, while another one let us climb up to her tree house. It was very interesting to wander the area with all its tree houses, to see the kitchen and the bicicly repair store. We were glad to learn that they were supported by local stores and people.
Every first and third Sunday they have a “Boscafe” or Forest cafe in English, where they offer drinks and snacks. Its for free, but you are invited to leave a donation.
Click here for a video about it on a Flemish news channel.
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April 27th, 2009 at 12:58 am
Interesting
Why do places like this need to be squatted? I wonder if it wouldn’t be possible to build such a place for example here in Brussels/Forêt du Soigne. Could be interesting for locals & tourists.
For everyone of you who knows Dutch – Here some more info: http://www.stadsomroep.com/Detail.asp?NUM=27486
May 6th, 2009 at 8:08 am
If you wanted to see for yourself, the address is Ten Briele, Bruges. On one side of the street you have the industrial area on the other side you have the forest.
Something else I should maybe mention is that the people living in the forest could be evicted any day.
There is a similar project in Scotland somewhere and somewhere else in the UK an action like this prevented a quarry being build in a National Park! In Frankfurt they did not suceed though from preventing the extension of the airport.
May 7th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
It’s not exactly a tourist attraction… It needs to be squatted/occupied because if there weren’t people chaining themselves in the trees, Fabricom-Suez could too easily cut the trees like they already did to build further on the concrete road…
There are more photo’s to be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=lappersfort&w=9101577%40N05