Mori: The man in the forest

When Mori walks through the woods, barefoot and dressed in a pink skirt, he doesn't look like a typical 25-year-old. He doesn't live like a typical 25-year-old, either.

To get to his bedroom he has to climb up a rope that dangles loosely from a tree branch up high. 16-meters (52-foot) to be exact, that's the equivalent of a five-story building. Mori has lived in a treehouse in the woods for nearly two years. His home is Mona, a 250-year-old, 30-meter tall tree in the middle of the Hambach Forest, 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) from Cologne.

The forest is about 12,000 years old. The property on which it grows belongs to the RWE Group, an energy company that plans to chop it down to expand the nearby brown coal mine, Germany's largest open-pit mine.

Mori wants to put a stop to that. He hopes to save Mona and the neighboring trees, and he's prepared to resort to illegal measures to do so.

Together with a few dozen other activists, who have lived in treehouses and a camp at the edge of the forest for years, Mori has occupied trees and chained himself to excavators at the mine, shutting down the whole operation for hours. He's also blocked the Hambach railway, used to transport the brown coal from the mine to the nearby RWE power plants.

These actions aren't just dangerous, but also illegal. For that reason, Mori uses a pseudonym. He doesn't want RWE to be able to identify him and prove that he once occupied the excavator - even though RWE has already launched a lawsuit against him for blocking the railway.

What exactly inspired Mori to give up his university studies and leave the city to live in a tree - and even risk a court case? There was "no eureka moment," said Mori. The decision to reject the "current society construct" and fight for the environment, "no matter the cost" was "a gradual realization," he said.

From student to anti-coal activist

Mori grew up with his two younger siblings and his parents in a small village near Giessen, in western Germany. He didn't really pay much attention to Germany's reunification in 1990. "It didn't play a major role in my life," he said. And he's only visited former East Germany a few times.

He never had problems with his studies, and graduated high school before going on to study philosophy and German in Giessen. Mostly because that's just what "society expected," he said.

He didn't really have a plan for what to do after university. "When I was younger, I actually always wanted to be a deep-sea diver," he told DW.

But after two semesters Mori realized that university wasn't for him, and he broke off his studies. He wanted to travel, to leave Giessen and discover the world.

"I realized that I was only studying because I didn't know what else to do," he said. "For that reason, I decided it was better to give everything up and find something that I believed in," he said. It was then that he started to slowly withdraw from society.

After traveling through Spain for four months, working for food and lodging on farms, Mori went back to Giessen and began running children's circus groups. It was there that he met someone who introduced him to the Hambach Forest and the anti-coal activists.

"That was the first time that I came in contact with people who were living in a different sort of society, one I believed in," he said. He returned to the forest again and again, and eventually decided to stay there - not only to do something against climate change, but also to live together with other anti-coal activists in an alternative society," he said.

Protest instead of work and possessions

"In today's society, many people define themselves through their job, which they don't even enjoy and which only stresses them out," said Mori. "They work their whole life in order to someday have some free time when they're old. I don't believe in that. I'd rather live my life in a way that makes me happy today."

Mori has given up most of his belongings, doesn't have a job, and doesn't earn any money. He lives on what he's able to find in the woods, and gifts from the bakeries and vegetable stores in the nearby villages. He's not entirely without possessions, though. He brought an old cell phone and laptop with him from his old life, which the community uses in the camp, though without Internet.

It's not as if he's completely against technology. He just thinks that it should be used in moderation - and not just because of all of the raw materials that are used just so that people can buy the latest iPhone. Mori thinks technology can also cause people to escape from reality, something he's experienced personally. At school, he spent a lot of time playing computer games and watching TV series.

"I'm glad that I now play in the real world," he said, laughing. "Although every once and a while I do watch a series on my laptop here in the woods. But nowhere near as much as before."

Mori has no interest in laying exclusive claim to people, either, and doesn't believe in monogamy. "A house with a wife and kids - that doesn't interest me in the slightest," he said, laughing again. Though he stressed that this doesn't mean he couldn't foresee one day having children. "But I'd raise them outside the father-mother-child structure. My kids would be raised by multiple people."

He much prefers living in nature, in the forest with people who share his lifestyle, over life in the fast-paced city. "When I go into the city after a few months in the forest, it quickly becomes too much for me. Too many people, too much advertising, too fast-paced," he said. "I quickly miss the forest. There's nothing better than waking up in the morning in the tree house, looking out over the branches and listening to the chirping birds."

A plea to society

Is life in the woods, then, more of a personal decision rather than a political protest? Not exactly, said Mori. "If society continues with its wasteful ways, producing more and more plastic crap, wasting resources, pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and being inconsiderate with other living creatures, then the world will go down the drain," he said. "I want no part of that. I want to do something against it, and that's why I'm here."

But what exactly can such a protest achieve, far from society? "I think it's a good start, what we're doing here," he said. "We've started a direct campaign at the local level, one that disrupts the actions of the mine. Of course, it's only a small contribution, but we're setting an example. And we have a blog [in German] where we document what's happening here. So we're witnesses to the destruction happening here; we bring it to the public's attention."

Mori doesn't expect everyone to move into the forest and forage for berries. "I just want people to be a bit more conscious about how they live and consider what they actually need in life," he said.

He doesn't have any concerns about his day-to-day life. "If you have fewer possessions, you have less to lose. I've realized that it's possible to live without money," he said.

When asked where he expects to be in a few years, he responds dryly: "Probably in jail."

Chaining himself to excavators and occupying trees is illegal after all, he knows that. But it's worth it.

"You have to do what you think is right," he said. "I can't just sit here and do nothing while the forest is wiped out."