One day, while searching for a hike around Cologne on Google Maps, I came across a stain on the map the size of the city. Someone told me it was the Hambach mine, the biggest open-cast lignite mine in Europe where 40 million tonnes of lignite are mined every year, eating away the Hambacher Forst, the last primary forest in Europe. It is known to be the first CO2 emission spot in Europe.
I decided to go see it with my own eyes and as I was biking around looking for a way in, I stumbled upon a village of tree houses in the Hambacher Forst. There, I met a community if activists striving for the remaining acres of the forest. I approached them with a pen and a sketchbook, as a way to understand their form of habitat.
From this field research, I designed a map of the forest that is a sectional view of the hole, showing the different species of animals and plants endangered by this exploitation, as a way to visualize the inmensity of its impacts.