California: Tree's Best Friend Returns to Earth
12/18/99
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Title: Tree's best friend has returned to earth
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 18, 1999
STAFFORD, California (AP) -- After two years perched in an ancient
redwood, environmental activist Julia "Butterfly" Hill came back to
earth Saturday, legs wobbly after her sojourn in the towering tree
she called "Luna."
The 25-year-old, who has lived in the tree since December 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.
Pacific Lumber spokesman Josh Reiss confirmed the deal but would not
give specifics.
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 was not immediately available for comment, but scheduled an
afternoon news conference.
"She's got great upper body strength, but she hasn't walked in two
years, she's only climbed," said a spokeswoman for Circle of Life,
Hill's support group, who identified herself only as Kathleen.
"It's going to take some time getting used to it."
Two sources familiar with the pact said Hill and her supporters had
been negotiating for her to pay $50,000 to Pacific Lumber to make up
for lost logging revenue, while Pacific Lumber would spare Hill's
redwood -- and a surrounding 200-foot zone from logging.
Hill 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, said a company employee who asked not to be
identified.
Hill, now 25, spent the past two years 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 become 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.