Branching Out

I cannot recall much about the early years of my education.

A very strong memory is of one of those work cards which on one side had a graphic representation of an historical event or natural phenomenon with a written explanatory text and on the reverse a series of questions testing the comprehension of the facts as presented.

One particular topic was on the Giant Redwood Trees of California.

I found it hard to believe the photograph on the work card of a Redwood which showed a road running through a tunnel cut out of the trunk and with a glossy, wide bodied convertible car with glossy wide bodied Americans driving through it.

It was a memorable scene and the very subject of the magnificent Redwoods has captured my interest to the present day.

Many of the species date from around 2500 years ago and current growths show a healthy existence even in the thick, pollutant soup of the modern earth environment.

Three individual trees are competing for the record height with the frontrunner at around 370 feet.

Unfortunately, the trees have also been eagerly watched by logging companies who have so far eradicated up to 97% of the original forest stock of Redwoods.

In December 1997 a group known as Earth First! sought a volunteer activist to make the long climb up one specific Coast Redwood for a sit in to prevent the Pacific Lumber Company from felling it as part of their clearcut logging operations in California.

A young woman, Julia Hill, made the ascent of the huge trunk of the tree named Luna and took up occupation on a small platform roughly the size of a single bed at 180 feet high (55m).

The protective protest was envisaged to last a couple of weeks or a month at most but it was not until the December two years (730 days) later that Julia Hill was able to,leave her vantage point and assure the survival of Luna.

Tree sitting had been a form of peaceful protest from the late 1970's to prevent felling. Julia Hill recalled in an archived interview her first moments up in the tree. She had made the mistake of looking down after climbing 75 feet and after being temporarily paralysed with fear, forced herself to continue the remaining 105 feet to the wooden shelf which would be her home for the duration.

It would not be an easy sit-in. The tree, a relative youth at 1000 years old showed damage from a lightning strike and this would always be a concern for anyone in occupation amongst the foliage. The position was very exposed to all of the elements across the seasons and the shelter afforded by tarpaulins was often destroyed by high winds, driving rain, sleat and snow storms.

Julia would regularly have to weave fallen boughs into the surviving materials and bind up with duct tape to maintain even a basic level of weatherproofing. She got well used to weeks on end of being perpetually wet and cold.

The logistics of her protest did rely on other activists to load up a basket with food which had to be hauled up on a daily basis.

It would otherwise be a lonely experience but there was often the company of wildlife including large roaming bears. regular media teams seeking an interview and periodic visitors. After one year the living space was extended with another platform and a phone on solar panel charge also helped to ease the time.

Julia suffered from frost bite at altitude as well as the underhand attentions of the logging company who impeded the food supply chain and kept her awake with air horns to deprive her of sleep and chip away at her determination to succeed.

The sights, sounds and smells of the ancient forest kept her motivated and she describes the beauty of living above the fog in a rainbow of colours and the rich and sweet odours rising from the vegetation all around her.

Her occupation was an act of Civil Disobedience and took a lot of courage to endure especially for what is thought to be the longest of its type in the history of eco-protests.

The doubts must have been strong on many an occasion but Julia had given her word that she would stay as long as it took to ensure the tree continued into its second millenium.

By the end of the second year of her tree sit Earth First! had managed to come to an agreement with Pacific Lumber Company to use raised funds of $50,000 to buy Luna and an exclusion zone of 12,000 metres around.

Julia had succeeded in her quest and was heralded a hero with many a song written to commemorate her acheivement.

A few weeks after the agreement to purchase an unknown individual severely vandalised Luna using deep chain-saw cuts but a team of specialists devised a collar scheme to repair the damage and the tree has managed to remain resolute.

The logging company who had been in trouble for causing a landslide which had buried a village some years before the protest failed a few years after Julia's success. Their scant regard for sustainable operations saw them exhaust a 100 year stock of timber in a mere 20 years.

In writing about her life as an activist Julia Hill explained that choices about the environment were not made in a vacuum and her story is a true indictment of this balance between ecology and commercial interests.