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Julia Butterfly Hill

We live in a world that is full of problems, and we are the solutions to those problems.- Julia
Butterfly Hill (Watson).
Julia Butterfly Hill, born Julia Lorraine Hill on February 17, 1974 is an environmental
activist best known for having lived in a tree for more than two years between 1997 and 1999 to
prevent the Pacific Lumber Companys destruction of ancient redwoods in California. She
braved starvation, harsh weather conditions, and a bucket as her bathroom all to save one ancient
tree.
Hill, however, has not always had the attitude of an activist. She was raised in Jonesboro,
Arkansas and was homeschooled by her deeply religious family until the age of sixteen. At
sixteen, she was attending college, and two years later she had opened up her own restaurant.
Hill was driven by an interest in money for the next four years until a catastrophic car accident in
1996; Hill was left with a fractured skull and unable to speak for a year. Once recovered, Hill felt
unfulfilled. She travelled from Arkansas to California to seek spiritual renewal and immediately
fell in love with the giant redwoods. After asking for ways in which she could help protect the
redwoods, she came into contact with EarthFirst!, an organization whose mission was to save
Californias giant redwoods from clearcutting. The codename Hill chose to be used among the
volunteers was Butterfly, hence where she got her nickname. Little did Hill know that by
joining this organization she would save a tree (affectionately named Luna) by sitting in it for
738 days and become a hero for trees and environmental activists for a lifetime (Watson).

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Several weeks after Hill joined EarthFirst!, the organization began to organize a tree sit to
dissuade the Pacific Lumber Company from clear cutting a particular section of redwood forest
and she immediately volunteered. At the time, Julia Butterfly Hill thought she would only need
to spend a week or two in a tree to prevent its destruction. The first time Hill scaled the
two-hundred foot tall, one thousand year old redwood she only managed to stay in the tree for
several days. She became sick and had to be replaced by two other EarthFirst! members. She
garnered no attention from either the media or the Pacific Lumber Company for her actions, so
Hill realized she had to do something more drastic: break the world record for tree-sitting. Once
fully recovered, Hill re-ascended the tree on December 10, 1997 with no intention of coming
down until she broke the record of forty-two days in a tree. Determined, Hill wasnt content on
stopping when she hit the forty-two day mark. When she reached one-hundred days she was
fielding calls from numerous media outlets and she had already gotten under the skin of the
Pacific Lumber Company (Purple). Until then, she had been harassed by guards and even a
helicopter. Fortunately, major media coverage was starting to take place and CNN interviewed
Hill. Although the media was able to quickly spread what Hill was doing, it wasnt enough. At
one hundred days, Luna still wasnt protected legally. If Hill were to descend, the Pacific
Lumber company would still have full legal rights to cut down Luna, so Hill remained steadfast
on her platform high up in the tree.
In March of 1998, Hill began to call John Campbell, president of Pacific Lumber on her
cell phone in an effort to strike an agreement. Campbell returned none of the calls until Hill had
been in the tree for well over a year. By this time, Earthfirst! had been raising money to pay the
Pacific Lumber Company in exchange for their promise not to cut down Luna. In exchange for

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fifty-thousand dollars, the Pacific Lumber Company agreed not to cut down Luna, and Julia
Butterfly Hill was able to descend the tree after 738 days (Julia). She and her fellow
EarthFirst! members successfully saved Luna from destruction as well as the surrounding forest
and preserved the trees for generations (Purple),
After Hill descended from the tree, she continued her actions as an activist. In 1999, Hill
co-founded the Circle of Life foundation to bring people closer to nature. In 2002, she was
arrested in Ecuador for protesting a pipeline proposal through indigenous territory. In 2003, she
joined the federal tax protest movement against the Iraq war. Then, in 2006, she joined another
tree-sit to protect farmers in Los Angeles. To this day, Hill remains a prominent public speaker
and activist. She supports the practice of tax redirection, where one doesnt pay their actual taxes
but instead takes the same amount of money and re-directs it towards a different cause.
Unfortunately, in 2000, one year after Hills famous tree sit, vandals took a chainsaw to
Luna, cutting a quarter of the way through the trunk and nearly killing the ancient redwood.
Luckily, experts were able to support Luna with a steel brace, thus saving her. Upon hearing the
news, Hill was devastated. Everything that she stood for and everything that she had fought for
was almost destroyed. There is no longer public access to the tree, thus preserving an ancient
symbol of life and nature and prolonging the tree that Hill gave up more than two years of her
life to save (Watson).
Julia Butterfly Hill is essential to the practice of urban forestry because she understood
the importance of trees and took extreme action to save one of our nations oldest trees. Her
public speeches about the conservation of our nations forest are vital in the ever increasing
effort to restore the nature that has been lost over the last several hundred years. In order for

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urban forestry to be regarded as an important part of every citys infrastructure, it takes actions
from remarkable individuals such as Hill to spark inspiration. Hopefully, others can look at Hills
achievements as inspiration in their own lives, and as a reminder of how truly precious trees are
to our world.

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Works Cited
Julia Butterfly Hill Defends California Redwoods. Swathmore College. Global
Nonviolent Action Database, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.
Purple. Julia Hill, the Remarkable Woman Who Saved a Tree by Living in it for Two Years.
Odditycentral. Odditycentral, 2016. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.
Watson, Nessim. Julia Butterfly Hill. Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica, 9 July
2015. Web. 29 Oct. 2016.