The organizing group of the Climate Camp in the Rhineland discontinues – Long live the Climate Camp

For more than 10 years, the Climate Camp took place every summer in the Rhineland. It was a place for regional and international networking, further education not only in climate topics, self-organization and diverse forms of action, discussion and trying out lived alternatives. And all this with good music and delicious vegan food!

Many people were inspired and convinced by the climate camp to join the climate justice movement. The climate camp is also proud to have helped launch many groups, projects and initiatives, some of which have grown larger than the camp itself. This is another reason why the climate camp has always been a great and important movement place.

The camp and also the group of those who have prepared it for months each time has grown and shrunk again during this time. We love the climate camp very much, but at the moment we have become very few for various reasons. It was still possible this year to organize a camp in collaboration with other groups (which was great!). Nevertheless, this summer/fall 2022 we decided with a heavy heart that our capacities are no longer sufficient and we will not continue to organize the Climate Camp in the Rhineland. That’s why we’re going to shut down the preparatory structures. We will hand over our infrastructure, shut down our website at some point and also no longer maintain the mail address. The Climate Camp in the Rhineland, as we know it, is coming to an end – for us an era and for many of you who were there, too.

This means that there is no group preparing a climate camp in the Rhineland in 2023.

Of course, other people and groups can always make a climate camp in the Rhineland! Our name is not protected and we would be happy if a new group/people would be found and also gladly pass on our “how-to camp” knowledge and infrastructure, nothing should be lost! You can contact for example InfraUnited: infraunited(at)autistici.org

We are happy that in the last years many climate camps have taken place in many places (and of course also outside Germany)! Keep it up, this world needs many more climate camps and many other forms of creative resistance.

KCR has long been a central and always an important space for the movement, but has long since ceased to be the only place of resistance in the Rhenish lignite mining area. There are numerous projects and groups where people can continue to be active: e.g. Lützerath lebt, Mahnwache Lützerath, Alle Dörfer bleiben, Kirche(n) im Dorf lassen, Menschenrecht vor Bergrecht, Ende Gelände, Zucker im Tank, Sand im Getriebe, Am Boden bleiben, Fridays/Parents/Students/Psychologists etc. for Future, XR, Last Generation … and many more.

We look back on the past climate camps with joy and also with emotion. We would like to thank all the people who have helped to shape the camp over the past years, be it in the preparatory group or on site, be it as an action actor, speaker or trainer, artist, cook, baker, power generator, in the EA, in the press tent, cutting vegetables or cleaning toilets!

Herewith an era comes to an end, which we probably all look back on with a laughing and a crying eye. We will miss the camp as we know and love it. But a new chapter is beginning, with many other camps and exciting projects on the still quite long road to climate justice. In this sense, we will stay with you and see you again somewhere.

The climate camp in the Rhineland is dead 😉 – long live the climate camp!

Greetings in solidarity,
Your last KCR-Crew