One night in particular, during a fierce winter storm, as her 6 square-foot plywood home rocked and jumped around crazily, she clung to the great redwood’s center and prayed she might survive the night. Foot-thick branches snapped off all around her head. Are you wondering why on earth she was even up there?
Hill had traveled west on a road trip with friends when she wandered upon a public rally and learned that unprecedented destruction was being inflicted upon the world’s last stands of ancient redwoods. Massive trees that had emerged from primordial ground 1,000 years before the birth of Christ were suddenly being clearcut, razed completely to the ground in huge chunks. Rain falling on one freshly de-treed area spawned slides that rocketed downhill with the speed of a runaway freight train, burying people’s homes, roads and a town under tons of mud, rocks and stumps.
The Pacific Lumber Company logged this area for 145 years before attracting the attention of Wall Street. When traders “discovered” a $60 million “surplus” on the company books — money used by PLC to faithfully pay pensions to hard-working employees — perhaps these corporate bankers yelled “there’s gold in them thar hills!” from the rooftops of their tall, gleaming skyscrapers. They took over Pacific Lumber on the sly, emptied its pension fund and commenced unsustainable clearcutting for the first time.
They bankrupted that company. Workers’ jobs and secure futures disappeared hand-in-hand with the rich lands that had supported people and irreplaceable animal and plant life for eons. Parking lot mud moonscapes were left behind in exchange for a few expensive suit pockets overflowing with loot.
Hill wasn’t an activist, but when she noticed that something was wrong, she acted. Her heart motivated her to move into a living tree to prevent its felling and to ask herself and the world to pay attention.
Wangari Maathai is another individual who started with a small, peaceful action: the planting of a single tree. More than 50 million trees have been planted in Africa based on her beginnings, which greatly combat desertification and hunger by providing new habitat for animals along with fuel, foods and water for rural communities.
This week the Interstate Stream Commission is going to approve the concrete damming and diversion/destruction of New Mexico’s very last free-flowing river, the Gila. It is one of the most beautiful and fragile river systems in America.
Why? Where will our waters and taxpayer money really end up going? Who profits from construction and who pays the costs?
Check out Philip Connors’ article “One Man’s Meat,” which outlines communications just uncovered between Colorado investment bankers and our public officials, along with this week’s Albuquerque Journal editorial revealing ISC staff have already signed secret engineering contracts for unapproved work.
Will you join me and take small actions? I am going to use my electronic devices less than I have been and write a letter or two to state officials. Take shorter showers. Smile more often and act when something is wrong, because it matters.
Daniel Richmond, a UNM graduate, is a former member of the UNM Wilderness Alliance.
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