It’s been more than two decades since environmental activist Julia “Butterfly” Hill climbed down from a giant thousand-year-old redwood tree after calling it home for two years — but her activism has stood the test of time.
Theodor Geisel, the children’s book author better known by his pseudonym Dr. Seuss, wrote The Lorax in 1971 amid mounting environmental concerns. The book tells the story of the Once-ler, who exploited a lush forest of Truffula Trees for profit, ultimately leaving the land barren and devoid of life despite warnings from the Lorax, a character who “speaks for the trees.”
When The Lorax was written, environmental disasters such as 1969’s Cuyahoga River fire in Ohio and the Santa Barbara oil spill drew attention to the urgent need for environmental reform. Events like these reportedly shaped Dr. Seuss’s outlook and reinforced his desire to create a story that was not just entertaining but also instructive.
Instructive it was. Scores of environmental movements were born at that time, including the Natural Resources Defense Council (1970), Greenpeace (1971), and the Worldwatch Institute (1974). But it would be more than two decades before someone took The Lorax’s instructions most literally.
Environmental activist and author Julia “Butterfly” Hill caught the attention of the world when, at age 23, she became a spokesperson for a California redwood tree named Luna. In total, Hill spent 738 days living in the Humboldt County redwood (December 10, 1997, to December 18, 1999). She lived on a six-foot platform suspended in the thousand-year-old tree nearly 200 feet above the ground — never coming down from the tree once during those two years. Activists supported her by bringing her food and supplies so she could maintain her sit-in and protect the forest from deforestation.
Like other environmental activists in the region at the time, Hill was protesting the Pacific Lumber Company’s deforestation plans. She descended Luna only after reaching an agreement with the lumber company that guaranteed protection for Luna and 200 feet of forest surrounding the tree. A year later, the tree survived a chainsaw attack, which left a lasting scar. Luna is currently under the stewardship of the nonprofit, Sanctuary Forest.
The descent made headlines, but coming down from Luna didn’t fix everything. “I came down to a hurting world – constantly wanting and needing my help with everything they cared about. From their child’s book report, to trying to save local trees and community gardens, to ending animal cruelty for food, to creating the Department of Peace in response to endless wars. The issues and challenges were endless,” Hill writes on her website.
The strain on her after living in Luna was too demanding, she says. “I gave generously for over 15 years because of my deep love for all that connects us. But the toll and price on me was too much.”
Still Hill is still widely regarded as one of the most influential activists — female or otherwise — of the last century. She’s one of the female activists featured in the 2022 Henri de Gerlache documentary Soeurs de Combat (Sisters of Combat) which looks at early female environmental activists preceding the likes of Greta Thunberg.
These days, Hill doesn’t go by “Butterfly.” She’s “Julia,” a life coach and sometimes food blogger, saying that part of her is “complete.” The world now has many “Julias,” like climate activist Greta Thunberg, who founded the youth movement Fridays for Future. Actor and activist Jane Fonda, now nearing 90, has also taken up the fight, protesting and running her own climate PAC. There are activist groups like Extinction Rebellion and Direct Action Everywhere, to name a few.
‘Protecting forests is too important’
While she gave up her activist name “Butterfly,” Hill hasn’t fully given up her activist nature. In 2023, she delivered a message to world leaders ahead of the COP28 conference. “It is so clear that people around the world are begging and calling out for forests to be protected, for people to care and take action,” she said in a statement. “Our leaders, all of us, have to be more than just talking about solutions. We absolutely need to be taking action and living these solutions.”
She continued, “Through my experience involved in this and other efforts, I learned it’s important to stand against, but while we do, it’s even more important to stand for something. REDD+ projects do that. They stand for ending deforestation, which is vital for the survival of our species. They stand for reducing emissions into our atmosphere, for protecting wildlife, and for a better life for some of the world’s most disenfranchised communities and for future generations.”
Hill also penned an op-ed following UN climate talks that failed to bring a resolution for forest protection. “I feel this tugging on my heart that it’s important for me to speak out publicly again – after more than a decade away from the spotlight,” she wrote. “The story that I’ve been blessed to be part of seems to have a life of its own. It is repeated again and again on social media because people care passionately about forests and feel overwhelmed by their destruction. It seems that my story also offers a sense of hope and belief that positive change can happen.”
Hill says we need this change desperately. Since 1990, the world has lost approximately 420 million hectares of forest – an area roughly half the size of the U.S., and she says that by 2030, only ten percent of the world’s rainforests may remain. “This hurts my head and my heart. My heart because I remember feeling such deep devastation when I saw my first ‘clear cut’ – with the trees slashed and burned away. My head because it makes no sense; our species needs forests to survive,” she wrote.
Deforestation impacts the livelihoods of 1.6 billion people, and almost 80 percent of life on land resides in forests. And, she says, protecting and restoring them would deliver a third of what’s needed to help meet global climate targets. “So, if we can’t come up with a solution to deforestation right now — we are basically saying that future generations do not deserve the right to a healthy planet.”
Hill supports carbon credit schemes where corporations purchase credits that represent emissions avoided. While the practice faces criticism for allowing companies to offset emissions without reducing their actual carbon footprint, Hill says “if done right,” the practice holds the potential to protect forests for the long-term. Projects like the REDD+ projects, which Hill backs, protect more than 3 million hectares of forest and reduce emissions by more than 63 million tons a year. “Seems like a win,” Hill wrote, but instead of celebrating, or at the very least allowing these projects to continue, “extreme people drag the world back to just talking and attack the REDD+ system for giving corporations a ‘license to pollute’.”
She says corporations already have that license to pollute from governments, “otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it.” She says the “sad truth” is that for the foreseeable future, corporations are going to be polluting. “So while that’s the case, let’s use the money to do something good – not only good but vital – for the future of our planet.”
Hill also chastised “haters” who have taken issue with REDD+ projects, calling them “part of the problem” and urging concerned citizens to stand up and take action, “protecting forests is too important to wait.”
In 2017, Hill recounts the label “ecoterrorist,” which was used repeatedly by Pacific Lumber (and other industrial giants) against her and other activists working to save Luna and the surrounding forest. “And here we were, completely peaceful every step of the way,” Hill told KHSU’s Geraldine Goldberg, who covered Hill during her two-year residency, doing a master’s thesis on it. “And they were the ones who had been violent, over and over and over again.” Hill says Pacific Lumber representatives were the ones caught on video camera being violent, not the people supporting her efforts to save the old-growth forest.
Forest teacher
More than two decades on, Luna still stands despite the increasing number of wildfires and a vandal chainsaw attack on the tree in 2000. Since 2017, Stuart Moskowitz has been the caretaker of the easement as part of the Sanctuary Forest Board of Directors.
“I continue to visit and monitor Luna at least once each month,” he wrote in 2022. Moskowitz monitors the cables that now support her. He observes and photographs her crown, repacks the clay used to fill the chainsaw gash. “Most important, I continue to watch Luna’s overall health,” he wrote. Biologists predicted that a loss of moisture and nutrient flow from the injury could cause a dieback in Luna’s foilage. “But they also reassured us that, while Luna could change dramatically, she might also continue to live for many (possibly hundreds) of years.”
According to Moskowitz, Luna continues to thrive. “Luna looks as green and lush as she did before the attack. She looks strong. Even the land within the three-acre circle that marks the “Luna Property” is looking better and better,” he wrote. “Julia Butterfly and her support team turned Luna into a worldwide symbol of the need to protect old-growth forests. Ironically, the chainsaw attacker has broadened the meaning of Luna’s symbolism. In the face of adversity, Luna represents balance, strength, and resilience.”
Hill still calls Luna the best teacher and best friend she’s ever had. She says her relationship with Luna was visceral. Photos and videos show how she moved so quickly and comfortably within the tree even at 180 feet off the ground. “It wasn’t that I became comfortable,” she said, “it’s that I began to trust communication with Luna.” That communication with Luna, and the forest around her, tuned her into something even greater but less tangible.
“One day, through my prayers, an overwhelming amount of love started flowing into me, filling up the dark hole that threatened to consume me,” she wrote in her 2000 memoir Legacy of Luna. “I suddenly realized that what I was feeling was the love of the Earth, the love of Creation. Every day we, as a species, do so much to destroy Creation’s ability to give us life. But that Creation continues to do everything in its power to give us life anyway. And that’s true love.”
The most important thing any of us can do for the planet, for each other, Hill says, is start by planting a seed — a seed of hope. “If you’re the only person left, as long as your hope is committed in action, then hope is alive in the world.” And these days, she sees solutions everywhere. “[W]e just need to turn talking into action,” she wrote.
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