Since June 20, the summer solstice, the Wondelgemse Meersen have been occupied and declared an autonomous zone!
This nature reserve, 14ha large, is the last continuous piece of wilderness of what was once a vast swamp area in the north of Ghent.
If it were up to transport company De Lijn and politicians such as Zuhal Demir (N-VA) and Lydia Peeters (Open Vld), the Wondelmeersen would be destroyed to make way for a so-called “green” depot for buses and trams. But a “green” depot you don’t build at the expense of valuable green nature.
The neighborhood has long been in opposition to this and founded the action committee “Bloemekenswijkbos”. Also, a group of biology students discovered more more than 40 protected animal species found on site including the wall lizard, alpine newt, small newt, fox, stone marten and kingfisher.
Until now, both local residents and the protected species living there have been ignored.
With this occupation, we join the struggle of the local residents. An autonomous zone will be created that will be responsible for the protection of this nature reserve. We crawl into the trees and stay there until the Wondelmeersen are saved.
We are not against a new public transport depot per se, but we are against the destruction of valuable nature. While De Lijn pretends that there are no other options there are at least 6 alternative sites…
Destroying valuable urban nature irrevocably and concreting it is not an option!
So time for direct action! When politics fail, we have to do it ourselves!
No compromise in defense of mother earth!
Wondelmeersen Occupied
Parallelweg, 9000 Gent, Belgium
wondelmeersen [at] riseup [dot] net
https://squ.at/r/afyp
https://wondelmeersen.noblogs.org/
Some squats in Belgium https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/BE/squated/squat
Groups (social center, collective, squat) in Belgium https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/BE
Events in Belgium https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/BE
