California: Timber Company, Redwood Dweller Both Climb Down
12/18/99
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Title: Timber company, redwood dweller both climb down
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 18, 1999
STAFFORD, Calif., Dec 18 (Reuters) - A California woman who spent two
years perched atop a giant redwood in a personal protest against
logging returned to the ground on Saturday after the local timber
company agreed to preserve the towering tree.
After some 737 days of living on and communing with the ancient tree
she dubbed Luna, 25-year-old Julia ``Butterfly'' Hill announced her
victory to supporters in the small town of Stafford, 240 miles (390
km) north of San Francisco.
``Before anyone should ever be allowed to cut down trees like this,
they should be mandated to live in it for two years,'' a sobbing,
euphoric Hill said to cheers from fellow environmentalists.
The agreement will permanently protect Luna and a 200-foot (61 metre)
buffer zone around the tree from logging by Pacific Lumber, which
owns the property.
In return, it requires Hill and her partner in the agreement, a land
trust known as Sanctuary Forest, to pay Pacific Lumber $50,000, which
the company will then donate to Humboldt State University for
forestry research programmes.
``She will be buying the tree and the buffer zone,'' Pacific Lumber
spokeswoman Mary Bullwinkel said on Saturday.
Hill climbed Luna on Dec. 10, 1997, vowing not to descend until
Pacific Lumber agreed not to cut the tree down. Over the past two
years, she has endured everything from fierce winter storms to dry
summer heat on a bed-sized perch about 180 feet (55 metres) above the
ground.
Hill's feat of endurance marked one of the most remarkable protests
against timber cutting in California's ancient redwood territory,
where environmentalists and loggers have battled for more than a
decade over the dwindling stands of trees.
In her 6-by-8-foot (1.8-by-2.5-metre) treetop lookout, Hill spent her
days reading, writing poetry and cooking vegetarian food with
supplies hoisted aloft by supporters. She kept fit by climbing and
used a bucket for personal hygiene.
She also became a celebrity, speaking to journalists via cell phone,
writing newspaper commentaries and even serving as an ``in-tree''
correspondent for a cable television show on the environment.
SAYS SHE WAS FORCED TO ACT
While acknowledging that some people would dismiss her as a ``dirty
tree-hugging hippie,'' Hill said she was forced to act by the
prospect of chain saws felling the tree, estimated to be between 600
and 1,000 years old.
``I just kept feeling there was something calling me to the forest,''
said Hill, a preacher's daughter from Garberville, California. ``I
just said, 'If I need to be here, God, then please use me as a
vessel.'''
Pacific Lumber, a division of Houston-based MAXXAM Inc. (MXM.A), said
it had agreed to Hill's terms to end a public relations nightmare and
prevent other environmentalists from staging ``copycat'' protests in
other trees.
``We have reached this preservation agreement in order to end this
controversy and focus positive public attention on Pacific Lumber's
very real commitment to the environment, the community and job
preservation,'' Pacific Lumber President and Chief Executive John
Campbell said in a statement.
The company voiced hope it could proceed with the ``viable harvesting
program'' in this year's Headwaters Agreement, under which it agreed
to sell several thousand acres of northern California redwoods for
$450 million.
Under the agreement, which Hill and other environmentalists attacked
as a sellout, the state of California and the federal government
bought 7,500 acres (3,000 hectares) of the Headwaters Forest, the
largest privately owned stand of virgin redwoods, and other, smaller
groves nearby.
Pacific Lumber was to go ahead with logging in other areas under a
Habitat Conservation Plan intended to save both jobs and endangered
forest.
``We are reaching out to the environmental community with an
outstretched hand and hope that they will join us in an effort to
work together to preserve 1,300 jobs and protect the environment,''
Campbell said.
Hill, in an official statement, praised Pacific Lumber for taking
``an unprecedented, courageous step towards ending the timber wars''
and pledged not to mount any more ``tree-sits'' on company property.
``Though I do not believe that existing law goes far enough to
protect the environment, I recognise the company generally regards
the environmental protections agreed to in the Headwaters Agreement
to be extraordinary in their scope and sensitivity,'' Hill said.