California: Tree-Sitter's Lofty Protest at an End
12/18/99
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Title: Tree-Sitter's Lofty Protest at an End; She reaches
agreement with lumber company
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 18, 1999
Byline: Steve Rubenstein
Tree-sitter Julia Butterfly Hill will climb down from her perch in
the branches of a Humboldt County redwood today, ending her two-year
protest, it was announced.
Hill agreed to terms with Pacific Lumber Co., which owns the land on
which the 1,000-year-old tree is located, according to her spokesman,
Paul Bassis.
After she descends from her platform 160 feet above the forest floor,
Hill will meet with supporters and is expected to undergo a physical
exam, sources said.
Hill, a 25-year-old minister's daughter from Arkansas, has been
living on a 6-by-8-foot platform since Dec. 10, 1997, in a protest to
keep the tree from being cut down.
Terms of the agreement that ended the protest were not disclosed.
Earlier attempts to end the protest fell through when Hill refused to
agree to company demands that she renounce tree-sitting and
discourage would-be tree-sitters.
``I will not sign away my right to free speech,'' Hill had said.
Earlier proposals had called for the company to save the tree and its
immediate neighbors in exchange for a $50,000 donation by Hill and
her supporters for forest research.
For two years, Hill has cooked vegetarian meals on a camping stove,
used a bucket for necessities and stayed in shape by climbing the
tree trunk.
She has entertained such visitors as Joan Baez, Woody Harrelson,
Bonnie Raitt, Buddhist monks and Native American leaders. The tree,
located near the town of Stafford, about 240 miles north of San
Francisco, was not included among the tracts protected in the
Headwaters agreement signed early this year by the lumber company.
Pacific Lumber Co. was not immediately available for comment.