THESE vibrant pools of water may look inviting, but they are part of a sad story unfolding at the heart of Hambach Forest: that very little of the woodland remains.
The nearly 12,000-year-old forest, which lies between Cologne and Aachen in western Germany, was once the size of Manhattan. Energy company RWE bought the forest in 1978, and felled 90 per cent of it to create the largest opencast mine in the country.
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The little that survives of the original forest is home to 142 species considered important for conservation, and is the subject of furious protests and legal actions. By the time the mine is exhausted in around 2040, nearly 20 cubic kilometres of soil and coal will have been removed from the site.
The enormous, colourful puddles are the result of acid water flowing to the surface and filling the depressions left behind by the mine’s machinery. They had long eluded the lens of J. Henry Fair, a New York-based photographer and activist, until one day “the colours were vibrant, we were able to get in the right place, and the light was perfect”, he says.
Fair, an environmentalist who runs a wolf conservation centre, divides his photography between portrait work (his portfolio includes world-renowned musicians like Yo-Yo Ma) and images of rusting machines, ancient ruins and environmental degradation. The picture here, Remains of the Forest, won the Climate Action and Energy prize at this year’s CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year awards.
