Original photo by GabrielPevide/ iStock
There are people who commit to a cause, and then there’s Julia Butterfly Hill. At age 23, the environmental activist protested the planned logging of a 200-foot-tall redwood tree near Stafford, California, by climbing it and living there for 738 days. Luna, as the famous tree has since come to be known, is 1,500 years old and was occupied by Hill from December 10, 1997, to December 18, 1999 — a two-year "tree sit" that was ultimately successful. Pacific Lumber Company agreed to save Luna in addition to every other tree within a 200-foot buffer zone after being paid $50,000; the company, which was founded in 1863, ultimately went out of business in 2008.
Oops, incorrect!
It's a factSequoia sempervirens, also known as coastal redwood and California redwood, is indeed the tallest tree species on Earth. These trees frequently live between 1,000 and 2,000 years.
Hill’s stay in the tree was far from ideal. She lived on a pair of 6-by-4-foot platforms, had supplies hoisted to her by a group of supporters, and zipped a sleeping bag around her entire body (save for a small hole to breathe through) on cold nights. On top of all that, she also braved El Niño winds up to 40 mph and harassment and intimidation from Pacific Lumber (including helicopter flyovers). Hill achieved a kind of celebrity status throughout her two years atop Luna, appearing on radio shows with the help of a satellite phone and earning the admiration of many.
Numbers Don't Lie
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The country with the most trees is ______.
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The country with the most trees is Russia.
Trees can theoretically live forever.
The aforementioned Methuselah isn’t the only extremely old tree. Fellow bristlecone pine Prometheus was at least 4,900 years young when it was cut down in 1964, and a Patagonian cypress in Chile called Gran Abuelo is somewhere between 3,653 and 5,484 years old. Living or otherwise, these super-agers share an important trait: They all have the potential to live indefinitely. There’s little scientific evidence suggesting that trees can or do die of old age in the same way many other organisms do; instead, they’re usually felled by external forces such as storms, fires, or axes. Of course, as “forever” hasn’t happened yet, no tree has lived that long yet — but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
Michael Nordine is a writer and editor living in Denver. A native Angeleno, he has two cats and wishes he had more.
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