This article is about Julia Butterfly Hill. For the species of butterfly, see Dryas julia.

Julia Butterfly Hill (born February 18, 1974) is an American activist and environmentalist. Hill is best known for living in a 180-foot-tall, 600-year-old California Redwood tree for 738 days between December 10th, 1997 and December 18th, 1999. Hill lived in the tree, named "Luna", to prevent loggers of the Pacific Lumber Company from cutting it down. Hill lived in a small 6-by-8-foot shelter that she had built with help of other volunteers.

A native of Jonesboro, Arkansas, Hill suffered a mild brain injury in a car crash a year before her tree-sitting experience. She embarked on a spiritual quest afterwards, and this eventually lead her to the environmental cause opposed to the destruction of the redwood forest in Humboldt County, California. Originally, Hill was not officially affiliated with any environmental organization, deciding upon 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 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. Unfortunately, Luna was not completely saved as it was severely slashed with a chainsaw after Hill came down from the tree.

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

Hill was the subject of the 2000 documentary film Butterfly, and she is featured in the documentary film 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. The Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Can't Stop" contains the line "J. Butterfly is in the treetops".

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.

Notes

1. "Out on a limb to fight for trees", USA Today, March 8, 1999

External links

• Big Picture TV Free video clips of Julia Butterfly Hill
• circleoflife.org
• Julia Butterfly Hill weblog
• activismispatriotism.org
• myhero.com Julia Hill
• Photos from Julia in the tree house
• Activist announces “the single largest war tax resistance in US history.”
• South Central Farm in Los Angeles

Julia Butterfly also has critics within the activist community:

• Newgroup - misc.activism.progressive
• disinfo.com

1974 births | Living people | Activists | American bloggers | American environmentalists | Tax resisters

Julia Hill