English · Chapter 36
Study notes aligned to the official NEB syllabus.
This unit belongs to the Language Development section of the Grade 12 Compulsory English textbook, so it is tested through reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and writing rather than literary criticism. Its theme is ecology and environment: the way living things depend on their surroundings, and what happens when human activity destroys forests, rivers and soil. The reading text, "Living in a Redwood Tree", tells the true story of the American environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill and the ancient redwood she protected by living in its branches. Around this text the unit arranges comprehension questions, vocabulary about the natural world, a grammar focus, a listening or speaking activity, and a writing task connected to conservation.
Julia Butterfly Hill is an American environmental activist who became one of the best known tree-sitters in the world. In December 1997 she climbed an ancient coast redwood in Humboldt County, northern California, and she did not come down until December 1999, a stay of 738 days, a little more than two years. The tree stood on land owned by a lumber company that was clear-cutting old-growth redwood forest, and the activists who had been trying to save the grove had named it Luna. Hill was not a professional campaigner. A serious car accident had forced her to think about what her life was for, and she came to the redwoods looking for a purpose. She expected to spend only a few weeks in the tree, and the weeks became years.
She lived on a small wooden platform roped high among the branches and covered with tarpaulins against the rain. Supporters on the ground hauled up food, water, letters and fuel. She cooked simple meals on a small stove, slept in a sleeping bag, moved around the tree on ropes, and gave interviews with a solar-powered mobile phone, so the protest became a national story. The hardest tests came from nature and from people. Winter storms with fierce winds and freezing rain shook the platform violently, and she learnt to stop resisting and to bend and sway as the branches did. The company tried to force her down: helicopters hovered close to the tree, guards camped below and for a time blocked her supplies, loggers felled trees nearby, and lights and noise were used to break her sleep. She suffered cold, illness, loneliness and frostbitten feet.