27 November 2023 – The UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) is underway, and environmentalist Julia Butterfly Hill is making a powerful statement after a decade of silence. Hill is calling on governments to fulfill their commitment to ending deforestation and is emphasizing the crucial role of community-centered REDD+ projects in achieving this goal.
Julia Butterfly Hill rose to fame in the 1990s for her courageous efforts to protect California’s ancient forests from destruction. Her historic act of living in a 1,000-year-old redwood tree named Luna for 738 days saved the tree and surrounding grove from being chopped down by loggers.
Hill has been out of the spotlight for ten years, but she’s now joining the chorus of voices demanding bold government and corporate action to safeguard forests, which are nature’s strongest defense against climate change.
One of the key actions Hill is advocating for is increased investment by companies in community-centered REDD+ projects.
“It is so clear that people around the world are begging and calling out for forests to be protected, for people to care and take action. Our leaders, all of us, have to be more than just talking about solutions. We absolutely need to be taking action and living these solutions. I was talking about implementing ideas similar to how REDD+ works almost 25 years ago while I was doing my direct action living in Luna,” said Julia Butterfly Hill. “Through my experience involved in this and other efforts, I learned it’s important to stand against, but while we do, it’s even more important to stand for something. REDD+ projects do that. They stand for ending deforestation, which is vital for the survival of our species. They stand for reducing emissions into our atmosphere, for protecting wildlife, and for a better life for some of the world’s most disenfranchised communities and for future generations.”
REDD+ was envisioned by the UN as a way to help reduce carbon emissions from deforestation. Today REDD+ projects protect over 3 million hectares of forest and reduce emissions by more than 63 million tons a year.
Julia has also collaborated with Everland to create an animation of her poem Where have all the humans gone? – written during her tree-sit.
“I was sitting on a branch of Luna just hanging and looking out over everything when it came to me. I grabbed my pad of paper and started furiously scribbling it down because the words were coming to me so fast. The poem is both sad and poignant, and given it was written all those years ago, it’s very foretelling of where we are today,” said Julia Butterfly Hill.
