For Release: August 20, 1998 Two Butterflies Meet in Redwood Forest The story of Julia Butterfly will be included in a forthcoming book by Alan Moore and Norie Huddle about people whose lives have been changed by butterflies. The book will tell the stories of twelve people from around the world whose "butterfly experiences" have reconnected them with Nature and given their lives new meaning. Moore and Blue Dolphin Publishing are currently discussing a contract for an anthology of short butterfly stories that he has collected. All these people are now working for the Earth and for world peace. The rights to one of the stories, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean- Dominique Bauby, has been bought by Stephen Speilberg. Moore has spoken to Spielberg's executive secretary and was told to get an agent to submit his story idea. He is now looking for both an agent and someone to write the screenplay. Julia spoke at a butterfly release in her honor during the Berkeley Earth Day Festival on April 25th at 12 PM in Martin Luther King Jr. Park. More than 2000 school children in the East Bay were raising butterflies for Earth Day releases. When she was only seven years old, Julia had a butterfly experience. It happened while she was hiking with her family on the Blue Mountain stretch of the Appalachian Trail, just outside Allentown PA. She said she will never forget it. On that day in 1983, a butterfly landed on her hand and stayed with her for most of the day, marking a turning point and transformation in her life. She said that experience was a gift--a gift which eventually led her on a spiritual quest that unfolded into her record breaking tree-sit in Humboldt County to defend Mother Earth and the great Redwood Forests of the Headwaters. During her tree-sit, Julia became known as "Julia Butterfly". Julia's butterfly experience was in the same general area where in 1997 Alan Moore, founder of the Butterfly Gardeners Association, called a butterfly to his finger while hiking with a Lakota friend. After watching a swallowtail swoop past them several times as they hiked along the same section of Appalachian Trail that Julia had traversed, Alan said to his friend, "Watch this!" He pointed his finger at and focused his attention upon the butterfly as it approached for the third and final time. The butterfly landed right on his finger tip, giving him an experience of goose bumps that he will never forget! As fate would have it, Julia and Alan met on March 14, 1998 by an ancient redwood named Luna on a 1,700 foot ridge overlooking the Eel River in Humboldt County. As winds picked up and clouds rolled in obscuring her tree-top perch, Julia descended some 150 feet so she could be seen and heard. Besides telling the group about her Allentown experience, she told Alan how "through lifes trials & hardships we arise beautiful and free." After a long exchange of stories, some about butterflies, Julia agreed to add her story to the book which they plan to dedicate to planetary stewardship. The tree was named "Luna" because Earth First volunteers set up the tree-sit on the night of a full moon. Is it any wonder the celebration and rally marking Butterfly's hundredth day in that tree named "Luna" occurred on the Spring Equinox? Is it any wonder that a shirt the Butterfly Gardeners had been selling for four years, entitled "American Butterflies", would depict both a Julia Butterfly and a Luna Moth on it? This kind of serendipity happens constantly in our work befriending Wild Nature! Norie Huddle is an author of six books, including Butterfly, Huggles, and Surviving. Butterfly was published on Earth Day 1990 and is a tale of great transformation which sets forth a global myth of our times which is now coming to life in the form of the Butterfly Gardeners Association. Surviving includes interviews with Bucky Fuller, Russell Means, Dick Gregory, Lester Brown, Ed Teller, Edgar Mitchell, Joanna Macy, and Robert Muller and was on the New York Times best seller list. She has just completed a new book entitled Money, Power, and Purpose. She is Chairwoman of the Board and Executive Director of the Center for New National Security. She has spoken to radio and television audiences of over ten million and to live audiences of up to ten thousand. Norie and Alan are now collaberating on a new book to be titled Butterfly Tales. Their butterfly "vision" has the support and interest of authors, futurists, environmentalists, and native Americans that include Mark Victor Hansen, Jean Houston, Peace Pilgrim II, Michael Cohen, Ken Kalb, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Dr. Richard Moss, and Trina Paulus, author of Hope for the Flowers. Julia, besides speaking to reporters from her cellular phone or to the ones brave enough to trespass on Pacific Lumber land and make the climb, also writes poetry. She wrote a poem about the rewoods which I will share with you. Everything Is Bleeding Majestic Redwoods bleed Shards onto the ground leaving behind scarred stumps a testimony to their wounds Where forests once ruled mud and slash and napalm as their only eulogy A man's pride swells as the latest giant smashes into the ground it's thunderous crash the applause he will forever hear ringing in his ear's It's a conquest to him his chainsaw victory over the defenseless victims another trophy to decorate his imaginery wall Trucks and trains the hearses in this funeral parade where ancient elders lay stripped of their glory bare to all to witness their shame They line the highways red walls of premature death It seems we've forgotten the meaning of respect I walk among the ruins the graveyards of all that's past tear fall streaming down my face my aching so deep it threatens to overwhelm A scream splits the grieving air I realize it's my rage I hear my rage against the men and machines who caused this senseless slaughter my rage that I can't ever have this forest back these trees lost into eternity I fall to the ground Laying my head to Mother's womb begging her foregiveness for the deaths of her children my aching so deep it threatens to overwhelm. Julia is currently making national news, including Newsweek, the New York Times on March 26, Time and People Magazine. She has now been in her tree for 6 1/2 months. An Italian television crew's recent attempt to interview her failed when they were confronted by Pacific Lumber security halfway up the mountain and forced to turn back. She is hopeful that a more daring camera crew will be able to reach her soon. She would also be very appreciative of someone offering to sponsor her cellular phone. Perhaps a cellular phone company or some other telecommunications company. "It would be great for some company's public relations to feature Julia's tree-sit in an advertising campaign," says Moore. "After all, how many people are making calls from a perch nearly 200 feet in the air reaching and inspiring people all over the world?" A front page story that appeared in the San Francisco Examiner follows. Julia Butterfly Earth First/Luna Tree Sit A.River Box 473 Fields Landing Ca 95537 http://www.northcoast.com/~sohum/luna Alan Moore / Member of the Peace and Justice Commission/City of Berkeley Butterfly Gardeners Association/Friends of Tree Island/Global Empowerment Network 1563 Solano Ave. #477 Berkeley, CA 94707 510-528-7730 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <A HREF="http://www.woodstocknation.org/butterfly.htm"> http://www.woodstocknation.org/butterfly.htm</A> <A HREF="http://prop1.org/butterfly.htm ">http://prop1.org/butterfly.htm</A> Butterfly Gardeners Sites <A HREF="http://www.treeisland.com/ ">http://www.treeisland.com/</A> Tree Island Millennium Gathering & Coalition <A HREF="http://www.GlobalEmpowerment.net/events.htm "> http://www.GlobalEmpowerment.net</A> Global Empowerment Network <A HREF="http://www.earthsite.org">http://www.earthsite.org</A> John McConnell <A HREF="http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000"> http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000</A> The Millennium Gathering <A HREF="http://www.motley-focus.com/~timber/essence.html "> http://www.motley-focus.com/~timber/essence.html</A> Jean Houston's Of Essence and Butterflies/ from A Mythic Life Determined Woman Guards Forest Giant �1998 San Francisco Examiner By Eric Brazil of The Examiner staff Thursday, February 12, 1998 STAFFORD, Humboldt County -- After 64 days living near the top of a 200-foot-high redwood, through storms and a siege aimed at dislodging her, Julia "Butterfly" says she is so attuned to her host that she believes she has felt its tears with her bare feet and body. Butterfly's pantheistic embrace of the tallest, thickest, oldest redwood in a 200-acre patch of forest is the focal point of Earth First's sustained effort to halt old-growth logging on California's North Coast. The 23-year-old Arkansas woman, who adopted the name Butterfly as a nom de protest, has become a pain in the neck for Pacific Lumber Co., which had hoped to turn the tree in which she sits into finished lumber worth close to six figures. Company workers have turned spotlights on her, honked at her through air horns, tried to interdict her supply lines, and, Earth First contends, buzzed dangerously close with logging helicopters. All the while, the skies have dumped the worst storms in years on her head. So far, though, Julia Butterfly prevails. Pacific Lumber Co. is temporarily stymied. So the tree she calls "Luna," also known as "The Stafford Giant," has a reprieve. "My spirit led me here, and I mean to stay with it," she said in a walkie-talkie interview Tuesday as light rain fell through a drifting fog on the 1,700-foot ridge above the Eel River south of Stafford. "We have extended the life of this beautiful tree through the winter." From her 8-by-8-foot platform aerie -- higher than a football field is wide -- Butterfly can see the Pacific Ocean, the Scotia sawmill of Pacific Lumber Co. and a helicopter logging operation, all exemplifying the forest practices that she is protesting with her marathon tree-sit. "This protest is more than symbolic," said Patrick "Fisher" Mulligan, one of 10 members of the Earth First crew that planned and is sustaining the marathon tree-sit. "Here, we're slowing PL down, stopping them from killing this tree" and denying the company a quick profit. Finished old-growth redwood lumber is worth $800 to $4,000 per 1,000 board feet, and Luna contains an estimated 20,000 board feet. Pacific Lumber, a subsidiary of Houston-based Maxxam Inc., owner of most of the world's privately held old-growth redwoods, including Headwaters Forest, which lies north of the tree-sit, has been relentlessly criticized by environmental activists during the '90s for alleged overcutting and cavalier logging practices. The company was flayed with bad press in January, when news broke that Humboldt County deputies had smeared pepper spray on the eyelids of anti- logging demonstrators. So its public response to Butterfly's tree-sit is measured and subdued. The company intends to convert Luna to lumber, but "we're obviously not going to cut that tree down while there are people in it," Pacific Lumber spokeswoman Mary Bullwinkel said Wednesday. Company helicopters are also unable to haul out half a dozen logs ready for the mill because they're in a 150-foot buffer zone around the tree-sit. "In the past, we've had some of our climbers go up and remove their gear, and that entices them to come down," she said. "We're looking for ways to entice them down." It began in early October, when a team of activists hiked up the ridge carrying the platform in pieces, sent a free-climber to the top, reassembled and occupied the platform before the company discovered the trespass. All this happened during a full moon; hence, the name Luna. Tree-sitting is a standard Earth First protest technique, but the Stafford tree-sit is a special effort, the highest and longest ever attempted. Stafford has been an environmental battle zone since Dec. 31, 1996, when a massive mudslide that began in the vicinity of a just-completed Pacific Lumber timber harvest destroyed or damaged 10 homes. It is also Earth First's base camp. Several Stafford residents are suing the company for damages. Butterfly's tree-sit is just to the west of and slightly above the mudslide's point of origin, and it stands out against the ridge line. "Jumpshot," a member of Butterfly's support team, calls the tree "a fist in the sky." "For a week they tried to starve us down," Butterfly said. "We were under siege. Their security set up a base camp under the tree, but we had plenty of supplies to outlast them. "They also buzzed the tree with a helicopter," she said. "It was terrifying. I'd never experienced anything man-made with so much power and feeling so dangerous," she said. Bullwinkel said that Butterfly's account was false in fact, that there had been no intentional buzzing. In any event, "she's willing to sit up there nonstop during a storm," Bullwinkel said. "I don't see much difference other than that the (helicopter) crews are being extremely cautious and careful." Butterfly's intransigence exemplifies Earth First's battle cry, "No compromise in defense of Mother Earth." But she is a far cry from the rough and rugged, all-male backpacking and mountain climbing stereotype created for Earth First by its founders. Daughter of an itinerant minister, who settled his family in Arkansas after a peripatetic mobile-home life, Butterfly spent two years in college, worked in retail, ran a restaurant, tried telemarketing and made jewelry before taking off on a vision quest that led her to Humboldt County's Lost Coast. Briefed on the old-growth fight by an acquaintance, she visited Earth First's base camp in the fall, volunteered to learn climbing -- and found her life's work as an eco-warrior. "I was scared at first, and then I just started paying attention to the tree, drawing strength from the tree," she said. "I could see all her scars and wounds, from fires and lightning strikes. I was making a spiritual connection." The tree is so old that huckleberry and salmonberry bushes and ferns grow amid its branches. "Eventually, I took my shoes off so I could feel the tree and started free climbing around," she said. When Pacific Lumber started logging the steepest part of the ridge and hauling logs out by helicopter, "I found myself crying a lot and hugging Luna and telling her I was sorry," she said. "Then, I found out that I was being covered by sap pouring out of her body from everywhere, and I realized, "Oh, my God, you're crying too.' The sap didn't begin pouring out until the logging started." Butterfly's conclusion: "Trees pass information on how to hold up hillsides and how to grow, and they also know how to communicate feelings." Butterfly attributes her name to "an extreme spiritual experience with a butterfly when I was a child" -- it rested on her hand during a long, trying walk. A chatty, cheerful woman, she has had several companions during her tree-sit but went through the worst of last week's storms all alone. "It was like riding a roller coaster," she said. "I was laughing hysterically; it was exhilarating, it was terrifying. It was something I lived through, and I'd prefer not do to it again. I was completely beaten and exhausted by the roar and the noise, but I still enjoyed the fact that I was up here in this beautiful, amazing, powerful tree and that I was still alive when the morning came." A vegan -- except that she eats honey and wears wool -- Butterfly said she was much stronger now in her upper body than when she first climbed her tree, "but I think I may have a little trouble when I get down. My leg muscles may have atrophied a bit." Her biggest physical complaint: "I am freezing up here." Aloft, in her sleeping bag, beneath multiple layers of tarpaulin, she reads by candlelight ("The Monkey Wrench Gang" by Edward Abbey, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera and Earth First journals) writes poetry and tape records her thoughts. There may be a book in her experience, one of these days, she said. She writes: It is a desperate picture that these branches frame, I want to strike out at the ones to blame, But that won't heal this sadness too deep to name. Butterfly plans to spend her birthday aloft. She will be 24 next Wednesday. To view the two S.F. Examiner photos that ran with this article, see... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/1998/02/12/NEWS3258.dtl Headwaters News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: Determined woman guards forest giant. Resolution of the City of Berkeley calling for an Independent Investigation into the Death of Earth First! Activist David "Gypsy" Chain Resolution # 59,802-N.S. WHEREAS, residents of Berkeley were participating in the Earth First! demonstration to save the redwoods, a critical part of our California heritage; and WHEREAS, the Council of the City of Berkeley on March 31,1998 approved the Earth Proclamation which calls for the protection of rain forests, redwoods, and other sacred places; and WHEREAS, there has been a alleged premeditated act of murder against Earth First! activist David "Gypsy" Chain that was witnessed by at least eight persons, including five Earth First! witnesses; and WHEREAS, Pacific Lumber has allegedly condoned and covered up this act of brutality, even in the light of these witnesses and a video recording; and WHEREAS, Pacific Lumber in cooperation with the Humboldt Sheriff's Department has allegedly sought to reenter the site for the purpose of further felling trees which would destroy crucial evidence and intere with the investigation into the alleged murder of David "Gypsy" Chain; and WHEREAS, the Humboldt Sheriffs Department allegedly regularly fails to take threats and acts of violence against demonstrators seriously and even uses pepper spray against peaceful protesters; and WHEREAS, the Humboldt Sheriffs Department allegedly has not seriously investigated this murder and speaks about charging the Earth First! witnesses with manslaughter. NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that Council of the City of Berkeley, as part of its participation in the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights, hereby calls for an independent investigation into the death of David "Gypsy" Chain by the Department of Justice and by the Attorney General's Office of the State of California. The City will send copies of this resolution to all California representatives in Sacremento and Washington DC, and to the approriate investigative offices, both national, state, and local. Passed unanamously Nov. 2, 1998 by the Peace & Justice Commission of Berkeley. Introduced by Peace and Justice Commissioner Alan Moore. Passed by City Council after crime scene witnesses and pepper spray victums testified on November 24, 1998. Please ask for update from Alan Moore at 510-528-7730 or Manuel Hector/P & J Recording Secretary at 510-644-6080. Let's demand justice, Alan Moore / Member of the Peace and Justice Commission/City of Berkeley HUMBOLDT SHERIFF READY TO CHARGE ACTIVISTS WITH MANSLAUGHTER FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OCTOBER 22, 1998 Contacts: Steven Schectman (415) 431-4483 San Francisco, CA: Cindy Allsbrooks says she's determined to discover the truth about her son's death. David Nathan Chain, a young environmental activist was killed by a tree felled by an employee of the Pacific Lumber Company on September 17, near Grizzly Creek State Park.. "The last time I flew out to California it was to honor my son at the many memorials held for him," said Allsbrooks, 44, a corporate saleswoman from Coldspring, TX. "But this time it was to find out why David was killed." "On Tuesday I went to the place where David died," Allsbrooks said. "I talked to eyewitnesses, and to our attorneys. Earlier, Detective Freeman from the Humboldt County Sheriffs Department told my attorney that thepurpose of the investigation is to prepare for civil lawsuits he expects will bebroughtagainst Pacific Lumber and the Sheriffs Department. When we met, he said he would recommend in his report to the District Attorney that the non- violent activists be prosecuted for manslaughter. Allsbrooks said the situation smacks of impropriety. "Apparently, Sheriff Lewis believes he can conduct an impartial investigation. It's not an investigation at all. It's part of an after-the-fact attempt to cover up the truth." A.E. Ammons, the Pacific Lumber employee who felled the tree that killed Chain, repeatedly threatened to kill the activists. His profanity laced death threats were captured on video one hour before Chain's death byactivistsdocumenting illegal logging. On the tape Ammons is heard screaming: "Get outta here! Otherwise, I'll(expletive) make sure I got a tree coming this way". And ,"I wish I had my (expletive) pistol". Moments before the tree struck Chain, four eyewitnesses heard Ammons acknowledge their presence in the woods, and repeat his threat to fall a tree on top of them. Curiously, Ammons is not a suspect in the homicide, nor have any charges been brought against him by any authority. Physical evidence at the crime scene suggests Ammons cut the tree that killed Chain out of the rational sequence customarily used by loggers, and contrary to recognized, standard industry safety procedures. Informed sources say that Pacific Lumber took no disciplinary action against Ammons or his supervisor. "Pacific Lumber sent an enraged employee out to cut down trees in an area they knew was occupied by the activists, without supervision, and where violations were in fact, found,." Allsbrooks said. At 6:00 a.m., on the day after Chain died, Pacific Lumber prepared to log in the area of the crime. They were kept from doing so by the non-violent activists' blockade of their logging road. Allsbrooks believes that Pacific Lumber's press releases were part of a cover- up. "Within hours of David's death they issued obviously false statements that were reprinted in many major newspapers saying Mr. Ammons didn't even know activists were in the woods," she said. "They also said that the tree Mr. Ammons felled was not the one that killed David. We now know that those were just plain lies." After the activists' video wasreleased,Pacific Lumber was forced to retract these statements. "The Sheriff's investigation is focusing on finding the non-violent activists to be the criminally culpable party. The Sheriff sent a letter to Earth First!, demanding copies of their non-violence and civil disobedience training manuals." she said. "The Sheriff has failed to investigate the Pacific Lumber Company'ssafety policy and procedures that should have prevented the death of my son," said Allsbrooks. "Sheriff Lewis relied on Pacific Lumber's word that they have tested Ammons for drugs or alcohol after the incident. Why didn't the Sheriff's Department do its own drug test?". Two Sheriffs Deputies, the Pacific Lumber accident expert, and the headof Pacific Lumber security spent five hours at the crime scene on September 26 with A.E. Ammons, yet Pacific Lumber tried to obstruct Allsbrooks attorneys from making an investigation of the crime scene. Allsbrooks said, "As a parent, I appeal to Charles Hurwitz and John Campbell to let me discover the truth. I demand that the crime scene not be logged until an investigation by an impartial government agency can be completed.". WITNESSES STATEMENT September 18, 1998 The following is the statement issued to the media by the nonviolent activists who were present in the forest with David "Gypsy" Chain when he was killed by a falling tree cut by a hostile Pacific Lumber Co. logger on September 17. Those of us who were present during the death of our friend and fellow activist David "Gypsy" Chain would like to make the following statements and clarifications. � Gypsy was a strong warrior who fought nonviolently for the forest. His dedication and commitment to defending the Earth is an inspiration to all of us. � Gypsy's death is not an isolated incident of violence. In the last several months trees have been intentionally fallen at nonviolent activists at the Luna tree sit and in the Mattole watershed in Humboldt county. This is part of an escalation of violence against nonviolent forest defenders in the Northwest and all over the world. � The loggers were aware of our presence as we had engaged them in conversation throughout the day. In fact, the logger that felled the tree which killed our brother Gypsy had repeatedly threatened us with violence and chased us. He also purposely felled other trees in our direction. We never contrived a call and answer system. In truth, we ran for our lives. � This is part of a series of lies and cover-ups to benefit MAXXAM Corporation, including, but not limited to, the "domino effect"� in regards to the falling tree that killed Gypsy, the "call and response" communications, the claim that they didn't know we were present and the overall claim that Pacific Lumber operated safely. � In closing we would like to send our deepest sympathies to Gypsy's family, friends and supporters and all those beings killed by MAXXAM's destructive and greedy forest practices. � Ongoing memorial services will be held off of Highway 36 just past Grizzly Creek Campground on the north side of the road. We are asking for the area to be preserved as a memorial site for David "Gypsy" Chain with all logging activities ceased. In defense of the Earth, Carey Jones Erik "Ayr" Eisenberg Zoe Zalia Mike Avcollie Jason Wilson Jeremy Jense Mike McCurdy
