German police confront treehouse activists after six-year standoff

Occupiers protesting against coalmine expansion in Hambach forest call for mass mobilisation

Hundreds of police officers have descended on a patch of forest in western Germany occupied by activists living in treehouses, in an escalation of a long-running environmental battle.

Dozens of protesters have occupied 60 treehouses, some as high as 25 metres off the ground, since 2012 in an attempt to protect the ancient Hambach forest from being felled to make way for the expansion of an open-pit coalmine.