Hill, Julia Butterfly (1974–)

Born February 18, 1974, Julia “Butterfly” Hill is known for her act of civil disobedience to prevent clear-cut logging of ecologically significant forests. From December 10, 1997 to December 18, 1999, she lived for 738 days high up in a 600-year-old California redwood tree named Luna. Hill drew media attention to the environmentally destructive actions of the Pacific Lumber/Maxxam Corporation (PL) under its new owner Charles Hurwitz. She remains celebrated for her integration of global thinking, environmentalism, public education, and nonviolence, with local activism, spirituality, and individual determination.

Hill was home schooled in a deeply religious Christian family that settled in Jonesboro, Arkansas. She began college courses at age 16 and opened her own restaurant at 18. After a near-fatal car crash in 1996, she began reassessing her life's purpose. Traveling west, she had a spiritual epiphany in California's redwood forests and redirected her energies into joining the environmentalist movement to control deforestation of the world's remaining 3% of ancient redwood forests.

Her 1997 decision to undertake civil disobedience in Humboldt County was a personal one. Her protest—which broke world records for tree-sitting—sought to prevent deforestation, draw media attention to PL's capitalist disregard for the environment, and educate the public about the role forests play in stabilizing hillsides. Because PL repressed employee whistle-blowing, via cell phone interviews Hill publicized the new owner's clear-cutting policy that reversed PL's previous environmental sensitivity. Living in the 180-foot tree, on a 6-by-8-foot platform sheltered by tarps, Hill was challenged by extreme weather and PL's use of floodlights and loudspeakers to force her down. Supported by supplies from Earth First!, a coalition of radical environmental activism groups, her vigil achieved a settlement protecting Luna's immediate surroundings, and included a $50,000 payment to fund a PL donation to Humboldt State University for forestry research.

In 1999, Hill cofounded the Circle of Life Foundation (CILF), committed to transforming human interaction with the ecosystem. CILF teaches green living, runs youth programs, and connects people with local opportunities to move their world toward peace, justice, and environmental sustainability. Both CILF's Activism Is Patriotism campaign against corporate irresponsibility and Legacy of Luna K-12 teaching curriculum are freely available through CILF's website, and emphasize active planetary citizenship.

Hill has addressed the United Nations and lobbied Congress. In 2002, while protesting with indigenous communities adversely affected by Occidental Petroleum's plan for a new pipeline slicing through the Mindo-Nambillo Reserve Hill was deported by Ecuador's police. Locals had adopted her tree-sitting tactics for over 6 months. In 2003, after donating court settlements won from lawsuits against unauthorized commercial use of her image, Hill joined the war tax resistance movement to prevent having the settlement tax bill used for the War on Iraq. In 2006, Hill participated in a tree-sit at a community farm in South Central Los Angeles to protect working-class immigrant farmers. Speaking frequently at universities Hill models how radical activism can mean being radically committed, to living each day in ways that honor ecological diversity and interdependence.