Julia Butterfly Hill
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Julia Butterfly Hill in the redwood tree Luna.

Julia Butterfly Hill (born February 18, 1974) is an American activist and environmentalist. Hill is best known for living in a 180-foot (55 m)-tall, 600-year-old California Redwood tree for 738 days between December 10, 1997 to December 18, 1999. Hill lived barefoot in the tree, affectionately known as "Luna," to prevent loggers of the Pacific Lumber Company from cutting it down. She was awarded the Courage of Conscience award October 31, 2002.^[1]

Early life

A native of Jonesboro, Arkansas, Hill suffered a severe brain injury in a car crash a year before her tree-sitting experience^[2]. She embarked on a spiritual quest afterwards, rejected the faith of her childhood and came away believing that we could transform ourselves; this eventually led her to the environmental cause opposed to the destruction of the redwood forests in Humboldt County, California.

Tree sit

Originally, Hill was not officially affiliated with any environmental organization, deciding by herself to undertake the act of civil disobedience. Soon, Hill was actively supported by Earth First!, among other organizations and volunteers.

A resolution was reached in 1999 when the Pacific Lumber Company agreed to preserve Luna and all trees within a 3-acre (12,000 m²) buffer zone. In exchange, Hill agreed to vacate the tree. In addition, $50,000 that Hill and other activists raised during the cause was given to the logging company (a somewhat controversial action amongst fellow activists), as stipulated by the resolution. The $50,000 Earth First! paid to Pacific Lumber was then donated to a local university to do research about sustainable forestry.

In 1999, Hill and other activists founded the organization Circle of Life Foundation.

The tree was later cut with a chainsaw. The gash to the 200-foot (61 m)-tall redwood was discovered November 2001 by one of Hill's supporters. Observers at the scene said the cut measured 32 inches (810 mm) deep and 19 feet (5.8 m) around the base, somewhat less than half the circumference of the tree. The gash was treated with an herbal remedy and the tree was stabilized with steel cables. As of spring 2007, the tree is doing well with new growth each year. Caretakers routinely climb the tree to check on its condition and to maintain the steel guywires.^[3]

Hill in popular culture

Hill was the subject of the 2000 documentary film Butterfly, and she is featured in the documentary film Tree-Sit: The Art of Resistance, both chronicling her time in the redwood tree.

Hill also appears as herself in Philip Seymour Hoffman's film Last Party 2000, a 2001 documentary which chronicles the six months leading-up to the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

Trey Anastasio and Tom Marshall wrote a song called Kissed by Mist about Julia.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Can't Stop" contains the line "J. Butterfly is in the treetop".

Penn & Teller's controversial program of skepticism, Bullshit!, featured Hill in a rather negative light in the first season episode Environmental Hysteria. In this program Julia states that she would never cut down a tree for paper as it is a stupid waste of a natural resource. She also states that Luna poured sap during her tree-sitting and that she realized that this was the tree conveying its grief during the felling of other trees.

In Lisa the Tree Hugger, the fourth episode of the twelfth season of The Simpsons, Lisa climbs the oldest redwood tree in Springfield to prevent it from being cut down, an obvious reference to Julia.

In 2000 the city of Berkeley, California designated April 2nd Julia Butterfly Hill day.

T.C. Boyle's 2000 novel "Friend of the Earth" features a female character who spends three years 180 feet (55 m) up in a tree named "Artemis", an obvious reference to Julia and Luna.

In May 2006, Hill, Daryl Hannah, and Joan Baez were among the activists who took up residence in a walnut tree at the South Central Community Garden, Los Angeles, where they claim working-class immigrants tended crops, but that landowner Ralph Horowitz wished to develop.

Hill is the author of the book The Legacy of Luna and co-author of One Makes the Difference.

A film about Hill called Luna is scheduled to be released in 2009, directed by noted Indian director, Deepa Mehta, who is in talks with Rachel Weisz to star as Hill.

In 1999, she was also featured in a German documentary about California, called "California Dreamin'" (Part 3 - Wellenreiter "Wave Rider") where she told about living on "Luna". The documentary is still aired periodically late at night on the German television station "Phoenix".

Neil Young made a reference to her in the 2003 song "Sun Green" on the "Greendale" album in which the title character "Still wants to meet Julia Butterfly."

In the book "Judy Moody Saves the World!", the main character Judy Moody decides to sit in a tree and be like Julia.

Reference

External links

• Julia Butterfly Hill's Official Website
• Julie Butterfly Hill's Weblog
• circleoflife.org
• Interview with Julia Butterfly Hill on KDVS, May 10 2006
• myhero.com Julia Hill
• Activist announces “the single largest war tax resistance in US history.”
• Julia protests Oil Pipeline through rare "cloud forest" (Ecuador's Mindo-Nambillo Reserve)