🦋 She lived 738 days in a tree, 180 feet up and won. The story of Julia Hill. — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00She lived at the top of a tree for 738
2. 0:03days, 180 ft in the air without [music]
3. 0:05ever once coming down.
4. 0:11In 1997 in California, a giant
5. 0:14corporation began clear-cutting an
6. 0:16ancient forest with trees [music]
7. 0:18thousands of years old to make chairs.
8. 0:20Julia Butterfly Hill was just 23 when
9. 0:23she decided to fight back almost
10. 0:25entirely on her own. She climbed an
11. 0:27ancient redwood named Luna carrying a
12. 0:30tent, a propane stove, and one goal that
13. 0:32seemed impossible, just to keep them
14. 0:35from cutting it down for as long as it
15. 0:37took.
16. 0:37>> I won't come down till you spare this
17. 0:40tree.
18. 0:41>> But the Pacific Lumber Company wasn't
19. 0:43going to give up easily. They sent a
20. 0:44helicopter to intimidate her.
21. 0:46>> My life has been in danger more by
22. 0:48Pacific Lumber hovering helicopters
23. 0:50above my head and cutting through the
24. 0:52trees growing out of Luna's trunk,
25. 0:54cutting other trees so close they hit
26. 0:56Luna on the way down.
27. 0:57>> They cut her support lines. They burned
28. 0:59the cleared forest [music] below her
29. 1:01filling the air with smoke until she
30. 1:03could barely breathe. On top of all
31. 1:05that, Julia endured violent winter
32. 1:07storms, the fury of El Nino, and
33. 1:09temperatures below freezing. Friends and
34. 1:12total strangers kept climbing up to
35. 1:14bring her food and fuel for her stove.
36. 1:16Finally, after 738
37. 1:19exhausting days, both sides reached
38. 1:21[music] an agreement. The company agreed
39. 1:23to protect Luna and a buffer zone around
40. 1:25her. In return, the activists handed
41. 1:27over the $50,000 they raised during the
42. 1:30protest, [music] and the company donated
43. 1:32that same amount to research on
44. 1:34sustainable forestry. Julia came down a
45. 1:36legend.
46. 1:40But in November 2000, someone attacked
47. 1:43Luna with [music] a chainsaw trying to
48. 1:44finish what the corporation couldn't.
49. 1:46Conservationists saved her with steel
50. 1:49braces, support [music] cables, and
51. 1:51constant monitoring. Today, the tree is
52. 1:53still alive, and the company, it went
53. 1:55bankrupt.