‘Treedom’ Fighter Saga Ranks High With Some Readers

Congratulations to Julia Hill and her Earth First support team for demonstrating the respect and reverence that nature deserves (“Fighting for Treedom,” Feb. 20).

That Julia is the daughter of an evangelist is ironic, since it was the church’s missionaries who, upon observing native peoples’ reverence for nature, mistakenly declared it nature worship and made it a crime.

JEFFREY CROWE CARR

Manhattan Beach

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Let me get this straight. A 23-year-old woman, with no tree-climbing experience, climbs a 200-foot redwood and lives there. Several of her activist friends dine with her on a regular basis, 180 feet above the ground.

But tree owner Pacific Lumber’s “climber” can’t climb the tree and kick her out “because of the vast dimensions of this tree.” What’s wrong with this picture? Why can’t the company tree bouncer climb a tree that everyone else seems to have no trouble scaling?

STEPHEN J. ABRAMSON

Valencia

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I will never forget my visit to Pacific Lumber Co. eight years ago. I watched tree trunks so huge that as they went through the debarker the entire building shook. Then they were sliced into boards by a 2-story-high band saw. Finally, some of the wood was reduced to gift boxes for bars of soap.

Under fluorescent lighting, alongside a cross section of an ancient redwood, were rows of picnic tables with little benches, each topped with a bouquet of yellow artificial flowers.

PAULA MAXWELL

Los Angeles

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It’s good to know that there are still some people out there who will sacrifice so much comfort in these days of consumerism for what they believe is right. Sure, this land is private property, but remember that definition included people of color, unskilled laborers, wives and children until not long ago.

Hopefully we are starting to realize that other forms of life in the natural world have inherent value and are worth more than what can be paid for them. Earth First and other groups are trying to save the remnants of our magnificent forests and educate people to the fact that their lifestyle choices have wide-ranging impact all over the world.

The replanting that Pacific Lumber does creates sterile, mono-cultured nurseries that have little resemblance to real forests. Their clear-cutting scrapes hillsides bare, killing ancient trees and wildlife, chokes streams and suffocates fish. Sustainable logging of second growth with no clear-cutting would save the oldest trees and provide long-term employment.

REBECCA NISONGER

Glendale