Calif. Tree-Sit Redwood Hit By Chainsaw

S A N   F R A N C I S C O, Nov. 29, 2000 -- A chainsaw-wielding vandalhas hacked a deep, potentially fatal gash in the base of a1,000-year-old Redwood tree where environmental activist JuliaButterfly Hill staged her two-year “tree sit” protest againstlogging, an environmental group said Tuesday.

The Circle of Light Foundation, which has campaigned alongwith Hill to save the 200-foot tree she dubbed “Luna”,said the damage was spotted over the weekend by visitors tonorthern California’s Humboldt County.

“The perpetrator made one deep and precise cut that wentthrough a significant portion of the tree,” the foundation saidin a news release.

Hill ‘Shocked’ by Attack

“While the tree is still alive and standing, Luna isextremely vulnerable to a windstorm. Judging from the precisionof the cut and the fresh sawdust, the criminal action appears tohave been committed by an experienced treefeller within the lastfew days.”

With a storm bearing down on the region, arborists andforesters worked into the evening Tuesday to shore up thestately tree, which has been deemed too precarious to climbbecause of the damage it suffered.

Luna, which became a global cause célèbre during Hill’sprotest, now has a 32-inch wide cut stretching some 19 feetacross half of its massive base.

Hill, who has continued to campaign on behalf of theRedwoods, said she was shocked by the assault.

“I feel this vicious attack on Luna as surely as if the chainsaw was going right through me,” she said in a statement.

Foundation spokeswoman Dawn Griffin said Tuesday that ateam of experts was being assembled to look at the damage, withan arborist, an engineer, and a forester slated to come up withstrategies for saving the giant tree.

Cut Across 60 Percent of Trunk

“The tree is not dead, but we need to find out how to protecther so she can be given the best chance of survival,” Griffinsaid.

The attack comes nearly a year after Hill climbed down fromthe tree’s branches, where she had lived for two years in ananti-logging protest that drew international news coverage aboutthe plight of northern California’s dwindling stands ofRedwoods.

Hill ended her protest after Pacific Lumber Co. agreed topreserve Luna and a 200-foot buffer zone around the treein exchange for a $50,000 payment from Hill and her supportersintended to save the tree in perpetuity.

Now, however, environmentalists say the Redwood may not makeit through the severe winter storms that buffet the region about250 miles north of San Francisco.

While investigators from Pacific Lumber and the HumboldtCounty Sheriff’s Department were inspecting the site,environmentalists were weighing options to buttress Luna.

Eric Goldsmith of Sanctuary Forest, the group legally chargedwith overseeing the tree under the agreement between Hill andPacific Lumber, said the emergency rescue team had decided toplace steel shims — thin plates — in the gap created by the cutto reduce tension caused by the cut.

They also were working to bolt braces over the top of the cutin hopes of steadying the tree.

“The situation is very serious. The vandalism attack did cutabout 60 percent of the tree’s base,” Goldsmith said, adding thateven if the tree survives the first major storm of the winterseason there were others on the way.

“Luna is an ancient redwood tree that has withstood manystorms, but this is just a band aid,” he said.