Luna
The thousand-year-old redwood she lived in for 738 days. The platform sixty metres up, the storms and the sieges, the December 1999 deal that saved it, the chainsaw attack a year later, and the book she wrote about it.
Part of Julia Butterfly Hill
8 moments in this segment.
- - Life on the platform. Two small platforms, a single propane burner, a sleeping bag and a solar-charged mobile phone. From here Julia would live, eat, sleep and campaign, never touching the ground.
- - The El Niño storms (winter 1997–98). Julia survives one of the worst El Niño winters on record, 40-mph winds, freezing rain and storms that nearly tore her from the tree. She lashes herself to Luna and refuses to come down.
- - Coming down - 18 December 1999. After 738 days, Julia’s feet touch the ground for the first time in over two years. She has saved the tree she lived in, and become one of the most famous environmental activists in the world.
- - Luna survives a chainsaw attack (2000). In late 2000 a vandal cuts more than halfway through Luna’s trunk with a chainsaw. Arborists and steel bracing save the tree; it still stands today.
- - The deal to save Luna. An agreement is reached: Pacific Lumber will permanently preserve Luna and a roughly 200-foot buffer of surrounding forest; supporters raise $50,000, which the activists frame as restitution donated to a university forestry program. The subject dates from 1999; this photograph was taken in 2006.
- - "The Legacy of Luna" (2000). Julia tells the full story in her best-selling book "The Legacy of Luna", and follows it with "One Makes the Difference", turning her experience into a message for others. The subject dates from 2000; this photograph was taken in 2009.
- - Climbing Luna - 10 December 1997. Julia volunteers for a tree-sit and climbs roughly 180 feet up "Luna", an ancient redwood the activists had named, onto a 6-by-8-foot platform under a tarp. She plans to stay a couple of weeks. The subject dates from 1997; this photograph was taken in 2014.
- - The face of the redwoods. As months stretched on, Julia became a global symbol, interviewed worldwide, visited by celebrities and journalists, turning a single tree into the centre of the fight for the ancient forests.
