Julia Butterfly Hill

File:JuliaButterflyInLuna.jpg

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, 1500+ -year-old California Redwood tree (age based on first-hand ring count of a slightly smaller neighboring ancient redwood that had been cut down) for 738 days between December 10, 1997 to December 18, 1999. Hill lived 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.

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

Early life

A native of Jonesboro, Arkansas, Hill suffered a severe brain injury in a car crash a year before her tree-sitting experience. 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.

Julia has had the nickname “Butterfly” since she was a child. She got it when the family was taking a hike one day and a butterfly landed on her and stayed with her the entire time.

Julia was home-schooled and started taking college courses at age sixteen. She majored in business. Julia loves to cook and started her own restaurant at age eighteen. She has been a vegetarian since she was a teenager and has been a vegan for the past few years.

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, 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.

Hill in popular culture

• A benefit concert was played at the Mateel Community Center in Redway, CA during Julia's "tree sit", on 12-10-1998. Artists performing were Bob Weir and Mark Karan as an acoustic duet, the Steve Kimock Band and the Mickey Hart Band. Julia took part in the event, reading her poem "Luna" via telephone while the Mickey Hart Band was performing 'The Dancing Sorcerer'.

• 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 television program, Bullshit!, criticized Hill in the first season's episode, Environmental Hysteria. The episode expresses that there is hypocrisy in Hill's assertion that she would never want to see the tree cut down to make products that she would consume while at the same time using commercial lumber to build her treehouse. The episode also derides Hill for anthropomorphizing the tree. In the past, Hill said that the tree's sap conveyed grief over the felling of other trees. The show noted that, scientifically, plants do not feel pain or grieve as higher animals do since they lack the the organs and biological systems required to do so.

• 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.

• A film about Hill called Luna is scheduled to be released in 2009, directed by noted Indian director, Deepa Mehta. It is speculated that Mehta 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 spoke about living on "Luna".

• In 2002 Los Suaves made a song in honor of Julia called "Julia Hill" on the "Un paso atrás" album in which the singer is "Luna".

• Also in 2002, Ozark Folk/Bluegrass artists Donna Stjerna and Kelly Mulhollan who perform as Still On The Hill released their album, "Chaos and Calm" which includes a track named "Beautiful Butterfly" based on and in honor of their fellow Arkansan, Julia Butterfly Hill.

• 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, but her little brother Stink makes her come down.

• A picture of Julia is featured as the cover art of the poetry book "A Brief Eureka for the Alchemists of Peace" by John Popielaski.

• In 2009, Idina Menzel wrote a song entitled "Butterfly" referring to Butterfly's concern for the environment.

• In the Grey's Anatomy episode titled "No Good At Saying Sorry (One More Chance)" a woman is hospitalized for falling out of a named tree she had been living in as protest.

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)