Sonunda
yaptığı bu "doğrudan eylem" başarıya ulaştı ve ormanı katletmek
isteyen şirket tüm projelerinden vazgeçme kararı aldı.
"Yöre halkı her gün Julia'ya yemek ve
içecek taşıdı. Halk, Julia'ya ' Butterfly' (Kelebek), üzerinde yaşadığı ağaca
da 'Luna' (Ay) adını taktı. Halkın şirkete ait araziye girmesi engellenince
polisle çatışmalar çıktı . California'daki tüm üniversitelerdeki öğrenciler
Julia için seferber oldu. Ona verilen destek büyüdükçe baskılar da büyüdü.
Julia aç kaldı, susuz kaldı ama ağaçtan inmedi. Açlık grevi kötü sonuca
gidiyordu ki, şirket, polis gücünü geri çekmek zorunda kaldı. Para teklifleri,
şan şöhret vaatleri, geleceğinin garanti altına alınması, kandırma, ikna etme,
korkutma yöntemlerinin hiç biri işe yaramadı. Tehditler işe yaramadı. Her tür
hava koşuluna, fırtınalara, El Nino'ya rağmen Julia ağaçtan inmedi. Yalnızlığın
dipsiz kuyularına rağmen, savaşından dönmedi. Beş, on, yirmi, seksen gün değil,
yedi yüz küsur gün ve gece direndi..."
Zeynep Oral // 26.12.1999 //
Milliyet
On
December 18, 1999, Julia Butterfly Hill's feet touched the ground for the first
time in over two years, as she descended from "Luna," a
thousandyear-old redwood in Humboldt County, California.
Hill
had climbed 180 feet up into the tree high on a mountain on December 10, 1997,
for what she thought would be a two- to three-week-long "tree-sit."
The action was intended to stop Pacific Lumber, a division of the Maxxam
Corporation, from the environmentally destructive process of clear-cutting the
ancient redwood and the trees around it. The area immediately next to Luna had
already been stripped and, because, as many believed, nothing was left to hold
the soil to the mountain, a huge part of the hill had slid into the town of
Stafford, wiping out many homes.
Over
the course of what turned into an historic civil action, Hill endured El Nino
storms, helicopter harassment, a ten-day siege by company security guards, and
the tremendous sorrow brought about by an old-growth forest's destruction. This
story--written while she lived on a tiny platform eighteen stories off the
ground--is one that only she can tell.
Twenty-five-year-old
Julia Butterfly Hill never planned to become what some have called her--the
Rosa Parks of the environmental movement. Shenever expected to be honored as
one of Good Housekeeping's "Most Admired Women of 1998" and George
magazine's "20 Most Interesting Women in Politics," to be featured in
People magazine's "25 Most Intriguing People of the Year" issue, or
to receive hundreds of letters weekly from young people around the world.
Indeed, when she first climbed into Luna, she had no way of knowing the
harrowing weather conditions and the attacks on her and her cause. She had no
idea of the loneliness she would face or that her feet wouldn't touch ground
for more than two years. She couldn't predict the pain of being an eyewitness
to the attempted destruction of one of the last ancient redwood forests in the
world, nor could she anticipate the immeasurable strength she would gain or the
life lessons she would learn from Luna. Although her brave vigil and
indomitable spirit have made her a heroine in the eyes of many, Julia's story
is a simple, heartening tale of love, conviction, and the profound courage she
has summoned to fight for our earth's legacy.
Butterfly,
which first aired on public television in 2000, is a documentary film directed
by Doug Wolens about the environmental heroine and tree sitter Julia Butterfly
Hill who gained the attention of the world for her two-year vigil 180 feet atop
Luna, an ancient redwood tree preventing it from being clear-cut.
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