Here is some very sad news. For more info on how you can help save
Luna, check Julia's Circle of Life Foundation Website.
Calif. Tree-Sit Redwood Hit by Chainsaw Attack
By Andrew Quinn
Photos by EarthFilms 2000
http://www.earthfilms.org/
Julia's Press Release:
http://www.circleoflifefoundation.org/lunacut.htm
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A chainsaw-wielding vandal has hacked a
deep, potentially fatal gash in the base of a 1,000-year-old Redwood
tree where environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill staged her
two-year ``tree sit'' protest against logging, an environmental group
said on Tuesday.
The Circle of Light Foundation, which has campaigned along with Hill
to save the 200-foot tree she dubbed ``Luna'', said the damage was
spotted over the weekend by visitors to northern California's
Humboldt County.
``The perpetrator made one deep and precise cut that went through a
significant portion of the tree,'' the foundation said in a news
release.
``While the tree is still alive and standing, Luna is extremely
vulnerable to a windstorm. Judging from the precision of the cut and
the fresh sawdust, the criminal action appears to have been committed
by an experienced treefeller within the last few days.''
With a storm bearing down on the region, arborists and foresters
worked into the evening on Tuesday to shore up the stately tree,
which has been deemed too precarious to climb because of the damage
it suffered.
Luna, which became a global cause celebre during Hill's protest, now
has a 32-inch cut stretching some 19 feet across half of its massive
base.
Hill, who has continued to campaign on behalf of the Redwoods, said
she was shocked by the assault.
``I feel this vicious attack on Luna as surely as if the chain saw
was going right through me,'' she said in a statement.
Foundation spokeswoman Dawn Griffin said on Tuesday that a team of
experts was being assembled to look at the damage, with an arborist,
an engineer, and a forester slated to come up with strategies for
saving the giant tree.
Tree Not Dead But Needs Protection
``The tree is not dead, but we need to find out how to protect her so
she can be given the best chance of survival,'' Griffin said.
The attack comes nearly a year after Hill climbed down from the
tree's branches, where she had lived for two years in an anti-logging
protest that drew international news coverage about the plight of
northern California's dwindling stands of Redwoods.
Hill ended her protest after Pacific Lumber Co. agreed to preserve
Luna and a 200-foot buffer zone around the tree in exchange for a
$50,000 payment from Hill and her supporters intended to save the
tree in perpetuity.
Now, however, environmentalists say the Redwood may not make it
through the severe winter storms that buffet the region about 250
miles north of San Francisco.
While investigators from Pacific Lumber and the Humboldt County
Sheriff's Department were inspecting the site, environmentalists were
weighing options to buttress Luna.
Eric Goldsmith of Sanctuary Forest, the group legally charged with
overseeing the tree under the agreement between Hill and Pacific
Lumber, said the emergency rescue team had decided to place steel
shims -- thin plates -- in the gap created by the cut to reduce
tension caused by the cut.
They also were working to bolt braces over the top of the cut in
hopes of steadying the tree.
``The situation is very serious. The vandalism attack did cut about
60 percent of the tree's base,'' Goldsmith said, adding that even if
the tree survives the first major storm of the winter season there
were others on the way.
``Luna is an ancient redwood tree that has withstood many storms, but
this is just a band aid,'' he said.
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Rex L. Bavousett
Photographer
University of Iowa
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