Yesterday afternoon, a group of protesters emerged from their four-day occupation of Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear’s office in opposition to mountaintop removal mining. The group, which included author and Nation contributor Wendell Berry, are part of a growing movement across the central Appalachian coalfields to abolish the devastating mining technique.

On Sunday, Berry spoke to Huffington Post blogger Jeff Biggers and Kentucky filmmaker Ben Evans about the reasons behind the group’s protest. Coal extracted from mountaintops provides less than 8 percent of national production and has irreversible, harmful impacts on the environment and the health of the local community.

The governor, Berry says, admitted to believing the coal mining could take place without damage to the land or people. Measurable evidence shows its already impacted the region.

For more information, read Jeff Bigger’s Huffington Post article. He has also written several articles for the Nation on mountaintop removal.

—Sara Jerving