Activist Comes Down from California Tree After Two Years
12/19/99
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Title: Tree sitter comes down after two years
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 19, 1999
After living in an ancient redwood for two years, environmental
activist Julia ``Butterfly'' Hill came back to Earth Saturday, her
legs wobbly after her sojourn in the towering tree she called
``Luna.''
After working out the kinks, she hiked the two miles from the tree to
a news conference on bare feet.
Though Hill said she was sad at leaving her treetop aerie, ``it was
so cold and wet this morning, I had to laugh, because I was so
thankful that I don't have to sit through another winter.''
The 25-year-old woman, who has lived in the tree since Dec. 10, 1997
to protest logging, reached an agreement Friday with Pacific Lumber
Co. and promised to climb down from her 18-story-high perch, which is
on company property.
Hill came down Saturday morning from the mist-shrouded treetops to
practice walking, a skill she hasn't used much during her time aloft.
She had other new experiences to deal with as well.
``I haven't sat in one of these in two years,'' an emotional Hill
said as she settled into a chair behind a small table covered with a
purple cloth, a 4-foot redwood sapling in a pot on one corner and
pastel roses among the dozen or so microphones.
She said she spent a lot of time wondering ``how am I going to take
this experience with me and remain centered in love, no matter
what.''
She alternately cried and laughed, covering her face with her hands
at times.
``There is no way to be in the presence of these ancient beings and
not be affected,'' she said. ``There's something more than a profit,
and that's life.''
One of her closest neighbors was Lonnie Vones, who lives below the
ridge on which Luna is rooted.
``She's my hero,'' said Vones, who fears the land above his home
would have collapsed if it had been logged. ``She at least delayed a
major disaster. If a big mudslide started there, it would wipe out my
house.''
Representatives of Pacific Lumber did not attend the news conference.
But in a statement faxed from its offices in nearby Scotia, the
company said it agreed to the deal with Hill ``in an effort to end a
community controversy and concentrate ... efforts upon implementing a
viable harvesting program'' under the terms of the Headwaters
Agreement.
``Pacific Lumber believes that the controversy surrounding timber
companies and environmentalists on the North Coast must stop,'' the
statement continued, ``and that it is imperative that common ground
be forged between the two groups.''
In the agreement, filed Friday at the Humboldt County Recorder's
office, Hill and her supporters pledged to pay $50,000 to Pacific
Lumber to make up for lost logging revenue. The company agreed to
spare Hill's redwood and a 2.9-acre buffer zone around it.
``Luna shall remain undisturbed on the Luna property in perpetuity
and under no circumstances, living or dead, shall Luna be removed
from the Luna property,'' the contract states.
Hill, who will be allowed to visit the tree with permission from
Pacific Lumber, had refused to come down until she received
assurances that the tree in which she lived on a tarp-covered plywood
platform would be spared within a buffer zone.
The company will donate the $50,000 to Humboldt State University for
forestry studies.
``We can now focus on our business and the future, and it allows
Julia to get on with her life,'' said Pacific Lumber spokeswoman Mary
Bullwinkel.
Hill, who plans to write a book, travel and speak, spent the past two
years about bathing in a bucket, hauling up food and supplies by rope
and sleeping under a tarp on an 8-by-8-foot plywood platform.
In the rainy Northern California forest, she braved howling winds and
damp winters, and became something of a celebrity. Television crews
from Israel, Germany and England filmed her. Singers Bonnie Raitt and
Joan Baez visited her.
She even became the ``in-tree correspondent'' for a cable TV show
about the environment.
Using her cellular phone to communicate, she gave interviews and
spoke at rallies against old-growth timber logging.
The 600-year-old tree is on a ridge above Stafford south of Pacific
Lumber's headquarters in nearby Scotia.
The region has been the site of numerous logging protests during the
past decade focusing on the Headwaters Forest Complex, a 94-square-
mile region that includes thousands of acres of ancient redwoods.
In March, Pacific Lumber and the state and federal governments signed
an agreement to turn about 10,000 acres of the forest, including
nearly 5,000 acres of redwoods, into a public preserve.