12 October 2019 | New Scientist | 29Scar tissue
Photographer J. Henry Fair
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.
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. ❚
Simon Ings