California: Julia Hill Won't Agree to Company's Demand for Silence
12/8/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Protester clinging to principals and limbs of a redwood
Source: San Francisco Examiner; She won't agree to demand for
silence
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 8, 1999
Byline: Eric Brazil
Julia "Butterfly" Hill is ready to descend from the lofty old redwood
tree that has been her home for two years, but only if Pacific Lumber
Co. drops its demand that she muzzle herself when she hits the
ground.
"They're trying to see how much of my life they can control once I
come down," said Hill, whose protest in the 600-year-old tree she
calls "Luna" has drawn worldwide attention.
Josh Reiss, spokesman for Maxxam, the Houston-based conglomerate that
owns Pacific Lumber, denied the company is trying to muzzle Hill. It
aims only to insure her safety and discourage other environmental
activists from protesting by tree-sitting, he said.
Pacific Lumber has agreed not to log Luna and to leave an unlogged
buffer zone of 200 feet around it, Hill said. "(But as a condition of
that agreement), they want to control what I say and do, and they
don't have that right."
On Friday, it will have been two years since Hill, 25, ascended the
tree, which dominates a stand of timber owned by Pacific Lumber on a
1,700-foot ridge above the Humboldt County community of Stafford.
A second anniversary rally by her supporters is scheduled at 10 a.m.
Sunday in Stafford. "It would be wonderful to me to be on the ground,
but it's not up to me," Hill said. "My feet won't touch ground until
that company has put ink to paper."
Hill's physical life has been circumscribed by a tarpaulin-covered,
8-foot by 8-foot platform 180 feet up the tree, which is so big that
huckleberry bushes grow amid its branches. But because she has been
interviewed and filmed by virtually every major news organization in
the U.S., Europe and Asia, the reach of her voice is global.
Hill said she and representatives of Pacific Lumber Co., reached
agreement in principal for her to end her protest some time ago.
"It's been in writing for months and months and months," she said.
"All we needed was a land survey and signatures. But then Pacific
Lumber went incommunicado" until recently, when "they proposed new
changes" including the issue of compensation, she said.
"That was one of the many points I gave them," Hill said. Raising
$50,000 in exchange for the company's pledge not to log the site for
which it has a valid timber harvest plan presents no insurmountable
problem, because "various people, seeing my life and this tree's
life, have agreed to give what they can," she said.
Asked why the company would require a payment from Hill, Maxxam's
Reiss said, "this is not a money-making scheme for Pacific Lumber . .
. or for anyone engaged in an illegal, dangerous activity.
"We are concerned about her safety and that of others who have
followed her example by trespassing on private property and engaging
in illegal tree-sitting," Reiss said.
Besides, he said, "we don't think this should become a money-making
scheme for her or her associates. She has a book deal. There are
promotional videos. There are T-shirts you can purchase. . . . We
respect her passion to preserve the environment, but engaging in an
illegal tree-sit is wrong."
Hill's book, "The Legacy of Luna," will be published in March by
Harper San Francisco.
"All of the proceeds from the book deal are donated to the Circle of
Life Foundation to continue the work that (Hill) began in Luna,
helping to network grass roots organizations across the United States
and informing the broadest audience possible about environmental and
social justice issues," said Nancy Fourwater of the Circle of Life
Foundation in Redway. The foundation's fiscal sponsor is the Trees
Foundation of Garberville.
"Julia gets no financial compensation from this deal," Fourwater
said. Maxxam "is trying to censor what she can and cannot say, and
that's a sticking point right now. She won't be censored."
What balks Hill about signing an agreement and relinquishing her
perch in Luna is that "some of their terms were stipulations about
what I would or could not do on their property if I agree to this
document."
She would not be specific about the proposed restrictions, citing a
confidentiality agreement, which she says Pacific Lumber has violated
by repeated leaks, a charge that Reiss denies.
Luna was being lashed by a Pacific hailstorm while Hill was being
interviewed, and the tree is frequently buffeted by high wind and
heavy rain during the winter. Despite the adverse weather and a low-
calorie vegan diet hoisted up the tree by her support team, she feels
strong and healthy after two years aloft, she said.
Hill's legs may have atrophied from disuse because of her life on a
tiny platform, but she's not sure -- nor does she seem worried. "I
won't know what it's like until that time comes." Stafford became a
focal point of environmental protest following a mudslide on Jan. 1,
1997, adjacent to the grove dominated by Luna, that destroyed or
damaged 10 homes.