Activist in tears at sight of vandalized Redwood

STAFFORD, California (Reuters) -- Environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill collapsed in tears Wednesday at the base of the majestic Redwood tree she lived in for two years, clutching at the tree's base where a chainsaw-weilding vandal recently hacked a potentially fatal gash.

Hill, whose two-year "tree sit" high in the branches of the 200-foot (66-metre) tree she dubbed "Luna" won international headlines and eventually saved it from the logger's ax, said she was appalled by the brutal attack on a 1000-year-old symbol of northern California's environmental movement.

"For me, Luna being cut is another symbol of the world," a sobbing Hill told a television crew, which accompanied her into the Humboldt County forest some 250 miles (400 km) north of San Francisco to visit the vandalized tree.

"We have this view in our minds that the planet is huge and powerful because of the things like the storms that happen ... but as powerful as all of life is, it is extremely fragile," Hill said.

Environmentalists discovered the attack on Luna over the weekend, reporting that someone had taken a chainsaw and cut a 32-inch (81-cm) gash stretching some 19 feet (6.3 metres) across half of its massive base.

While forestry experts say the Redwood can survive the cut itself, many are worried that the towering tree has become dangerously unstable and could be blown over by the fierce winter storms which whip the region.

On Tuesday, an emergency team of arborists and foresters placed steel shims -- thin plates -- in the gap created by the cut to reduce tension caused by the cut and bolted braces over the top of the cut in hopes of steadying the tree.

Hill ended her "tree sit" protest in December 1999 after Pacific Lumber Co. agreed to preserve Luna and a 200-foot (66-km) buffer zone around the tree in exchange for a $50,000 payment from Hill and her supporters intended to save the tree in perpetuity.

Pacific Lumber has joined in the effort to save Luna from the winter winds as local sheriff's office investigate the attack as a criminal act.

The stand-off over Luna was only one of a series of confrontations between environmentalists concerned over the fate of California's dwindling stands of ancient Redwoods and logging communities, who felt that their livelihood was being unfairly targeted by outside interlopers.

Police have said thus far they have no clues as to who might have made the cut on Luna, although local activists say it was clearly the work of someone trained to use a chainsaw.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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