Berlin startup offers €1m to save ancient Hambach forest from coal mining

Ecosia offers to buy remaining forest from energy firm RWE, which plans to fell most of the trees

A non-profit Berlin tech startup has offered to buy the remaining 200 hectares of an ancient German forest to save it from being destroyed for coal surface mining.

Ecosia, a search engine which donates the majority of its advertising revenue to conservation initiatives and funded the planting of almost 40m trees across the world, has approached the energy firm RWE with an offer of a1m (877,000) to secure the final stretch of the 12,000-year-old Hambach forest in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.