Climate Activists Fill Golf Holes with Cement in France
03:16 GMT 14.08.2022 (Updated: 14:11 GMT 14.02.2023)
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France’s drought has affected much of the country, canceling football games due to poor field conditions and requiring residents to go without watering their lawns and gardens.
Climate activists in France filled golf course holes with cement in a protest of the courses’ exemption from water bans affecting much of the country on Wednesday night.
While residents in much of France are banned from watering their gardens, golf courses have been able to mostly proceed as normal, something that has angered activists. While golf courses are required to water their greens at night and have to limit their water to 30% of normal levels, that is not enough for climate activists while 100 French villages are short on drinking water and some have had to truck water in after their pipes ran dry.
🌃 Durant la nuit du 10 août toujours plus caniculaire et aride, l'ACTION KIRIKOU (réalisée entre autres par #ExtinctionRebellion #Toulouse) a ciblé les GOLFS 🏌️ du midi toulousain.#Canicule#Secheresse2022 #Golf pic.twitter.com/Q0beOHQ0Nm
— Extinction Rebellion Toulouse (@xrToulouse) August 11, 2022
The activism was claimed by the local branch of the Extinction Rebellion movement, named Kiriku. The group called golf the “leisure industry of the most privileged.”
More than two-thirds of the country is in a declared state of crisis with rainfall down 85% in some areas and the Loire River virtually dried up.
Golf course officials say that their greens will die if they are not watered for more than three days and claim that 15,000 jobs in France are dependent on the courses.
The activists are also running a petition to ban the watering of golf courses during the drought. It has 1,510 signatures at press time.
“In level 2 and 3 drought, the watering of greens, courses and golf tees is authorized… while the watering of vegetable gardens is increasingly restricted. So does food come after a few hours of pleasure for a bourgeois elite?” [translated by Google]
While water bans in France are declared at a national level, the enforcement of them falls to regional governments. So far, only one region has banned the watering of golf courses, Ille-et-Villaine in Western France.
“This brazen act of sabotage resonates as a direct action move in a context of incessant bluster from politicians who never dare to make the necessary decisions," the activists were quoted as saying in Sloboden Pechat, a Macedonian language media outlet.
