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IPFS News Link • Transportation

Activists Are Fighting to Stop Tesla from Clearing a Forest for a Gigafactory

• https://www.vice.com, Gabriel Geiger

Tesla must temporarily halt plans to clear 82 hectares (~203 acres) of pine forest for its upcoming Gigafactory near Berlin, a German court ruled late Monday evening, after two environmental organizations sued the company for endangering local wildlife.

NABU Brandenburg and Grüne Liga Brandenburg, the two organizations behind the suit, reacted to the decision with relief—but they also know it's only a battle in a year-long war with the electric car giant. While the forest is safe for now, the court's order is temporary. The final decision is expected in the coming weeks. 

"It's a first step, if not a small one, but we feel quite relieved and lucky that the court quickly recognized that we are arguing something worthwhile here," Christiane Schröder, managing director of NABU Brandenburg, told Motherboard over the phone. If it weren't for the court order, she said, the forest would've been cleared in a matter of days. 

Ever since it was announced last November, the planned Gigafactory (which Tesla claims will be "the most advanced high-volume electric vehicle production plant in the world") has been met with fierce resistance from environmental activists. Tesla wants to have the facility up and running by July 2021. 

Since the factory will require a massive 1.45 million cubic meters of water a year in a region where the resource is already scarce, activists fear that it could harm a number of protected plants and animals in the bordering Löcknitztal nature reserve. Furthermore, they argue, Tesla's plans to cut down large swathes of pine forest show little understanding or care for its inhabitants. While the firm pledged to catch and relocate the animals, many of them are burrowed and hidden during the winter months, making them hard to find. 


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