Luna cut - Vandals chainsaw through half of her trunk

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Sometime around Thanksgiving 2000, Luna the redwood tree that was supposed to be "saved" by Julia Butterfly's famous tree-sit was cut at the base with a chainsaw. The tree is still alive and standing, but is now extremely vulnerable to high winds. The cut has been measured at 32 inches deep around at least half the tree. The tree is approximately 15 feet in diameter and estimated to be between 1800-2000 years old. Experts feel that Luna can survive the cut. Upon hearing the news Julia Butterfly Hill returned to Humboldt County immediately.

"It kills me that the last 3% of the ancient redwoods are being desecrated. I feel this vicious attack on Luna as surely as if the chainsaw was going through me. Words cannot express the deep sorrow that I am experiencing, but I am as committed as ever to do everything in my power to protect Luna and the remaining ancient forests." said Julia. Video activists from HAVC went up to LUNA to get images within hours of getting the sad news that she had been cut.That same evening Earth Films had downloadable photos for the press to print and had helped Reuters news service get an article out worldwide. Over 25,000 people visited the web site that week, 1400 people downloaded the jpeg images which were also printed in major newspaper’s including the SF Chronicle and SF Examiner. Our video footage went out to the world TV networks via satellite uplink. While the world was just hearing about the attack on Luna a team of arborists, activists and PL workers went up to Luna and put support braces around the base of the tree. Earth Films accompanied Julia that week to get images of her first reaction to the damage and the emergency braces. Julia Butterfly then did a press conference with major media networks. We made the audio available to everyone via the earthfilms.org web site.

One of the missions of Earth Films is to help make it easier for press and media to cover these stories by providing fast access via the internet to photos, audio, text and streaming video. the web is our cheapest fastest way to reach the press and public with these kind breaking news stories from behind the redwood curtain.