Generation green - youth fight for planet - Brief Article

Sierra, Nov, 2000 by Heather Millar

As recently as five or six years ago, tree-sits like the one at Fall Creek--which began with two trees and has since expanded to six--were disorganized, emotional responses to planned timber harvests. Protesters literally chained themselves to tree limbs. Today, tree-sits are sophisticated efforts employing cell phones, walkie-talkies, Web sites, mountaineering gear, and savvy public relations. At least eight established tree-sits continue in California, Oregon, and Washington; most have sprung up since 1997, when Julia Butterfly Hill scaled Luna, the now-famous Humboldt County, California, redwood where she lived for two years. While loggers have cut the forests around Luna, and around an Oregon tree called Madre Loca, the other tree-sits have managed to keep the chainsaws at bay.

Lorax leads me into his forest world. Once a high school jock in upstate New York, he passed through the Oregon woods en route to Hawaii one summer. "I just knew this was where I needed to be. Hawaii will be there later," Lorax says. "I've changed a lot." The 25-year-old has spent a total of 13 months in the trees. In a simple ceremony, he even "married" a big tree they've named Grandma.

I feel disoriented almost as soon as we leave the clearing, but Lorax hikes with confidence. Like most old-growth forests, this stand of ancient Douglas firs has a spacious, luxuriant quality to it. The branches above our heads are festooned with witches' hair moss. Large ferns and giant skunk cabbage spring like green fountains from the dark soil. On the ground, mushrooms curl in strange shapes, and bright green and yellow centipedes inch along amid brown salamanders with pumpkin-orange bellies.

After about an hour, Lorax brings me to the fallen body of Joy, a tree once protected by a tree-sitter. Lorax becomes solemn, almost funereal. "For some reason, the sitter came down, and the Forest Service got wind of it. They came out and cut the tree down. They didn't even take it. What a waste," he says. "Remembering what happened to Joy keeps us going. If it comes to the tree's life or my life, I'll sacrifice mine."

Back at the tree village in late afternoon, Sprite, 19, climbs barefoot down a tree, then uses a rope to descend the last 15 branchless yards. It's time for me to go up. Sprite shows me how to buckle into a mountaineering harness and how to slide the triple-slipknots up the main rope until I put weight on them. To ascend, I step into a foot-loop of webbing, wrench my body toward the main rope, and stand straight up in the loop. Then I slide the hand knot up as far as it will go, sit back in the harness, and begin again.

"Try to enjoy the climb," says Sprite, who trained as a dancer before her experience as a WTO demonstrator led her to the tree-sit. "You'll do fine."

I start my clumsy inchworm dance up the rope. At 30 feet up, I begin to sweat and rue my decision to wear a fleece pullover. About 75 feet up, my hands blister, then tear. No wonder most everyone in this tree-sit brigade is (unlike me) under 30. But despite the difficulty and the fear, the climb becomes enjoyable. With each slide and heave, I see more clearly that a forest is not just a loamy floor and a cool canopy above, but a vertical, three-dimensional universe, like the ocean. Tree voles skitter up the trunks. Flying squirrels and gray jays flit from branch to branch. Insects whir and buzz everywhere.