29 March 2023

David Dresen

David joined BFF in March 2023. He has a BA in philosophy, politics and social sciences, is studying economics part-time and worked as a maths teacher.
He grew up knowing that his hometown Kuckum in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) would be destroyed for the Garzweiler II open cast lignite mine. Encouraged by the resistance in the Hambach Forst, David was part of founding ‘Alle Dörfer bleiben’ (all villages remain) in 2018 together with local residents and people from the climate justice movement. As one of the faces of the local resistance, he was part of ensuring that his village and four others were saved from destruction and that the coal phase-out in NRW was brought forward to 2030.
David supported lawsuits of local residents and contributed in many ways to the resistance against the destruction of Lützerath. Lützerath’s fate became known worldwide in January of 2023 – when amid huge protests the village was destroyed for the mining of climate-damaging lignite. Apart from his activist work, David is now working with BFF to bring about an earlier coal phase-out in eastern Germany.