Less than an hour from the COP23 summit in Bonn lies an example of Germany’s dirty environmental secret: An ancient forest that is being razed by a coal mine.

For decades German utility RWE has been clearing the ancient Hambach Forest to unearth more coal. With little left to preserve, environmentalists are fighting back.

Images by photographer Néha Hirve document how activists squatting in the 12,000-year-old Hambach Forest are fighting an energy company's encroachment.

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Hundreds of police protecting workers from energy company as they clear obstacles to expansion of mine in Hambach forest ...

The Hambach Forest is nestled in the Rhineland of western Germany, not too far from the city of Cologne. At 12,000 years old, it is the oldest old-growth forest in Central Europe and it used to cover ...

Thousands of people have protested to save the last 200 hectares of western Germany's ancient Hambach Forest. The forest is at risk of being felled to allow energy giant RWE to continue its ...

While the German government is supposed to set a coal phase-out date, energy utility RWE is putting the breaks on the Energiewende.

On May 27, 1832, the so-called Hambach Festival took place, at which 30,000 people from all over Germany, as well as France and Poland, gathered to demand democracy, freedom and a united Europe.

Less than an hour from the COP23 summit in Bonn lies an example of Germany’s dirty environmental secret: An ancient forest that is being razed by a coal mine.