Jerlina’s Rough Draft Tree-Sit Article Fiat Lux is the motto of the University of California. While it stands for “Let there be light” its meaning is compounded by its being written in Latin, a language that only a small handful of people well educated in western letters can benefit from reading. So in essence it stands for “let there be light for a few” and this motto is at the heart of the Oak Grove Tree Sit, initiated over a year ago on December 2nd 2006.
- Late in the fall of '06 the university announced plans to construct a high-tech athletic training facility to better meet the needs of Cal’s distinguished student athletes. This was to take place upon a mature grove of 42 trees adjacent to the Memorial Stadium on Piedmont Ave. Jess Everything, Zachary Runningwolf and Ayr, three Berkeley activists, got wind of the plans and decided to experiment with a tree sit as a way of saving this urban forest. Equipped with Carribeaners, harnesses and their inner light of hope, they began the longest running urban tree sit. Over the past year, with media coverage spanning from the New York Times to the Hindustani times, the treesitters have successfully raised public concern about the University’s contradictory practices of elevating the needs of an isolated elite few, over the well being of the diverse life-systems that the public still expects it to serve. Just like spotted owls are an indicator species of the health of an eco-system, the treesitters see themselves as an indicator species of the health of this public university. They see the regents as an elite few serving the needs of their wealthy friends as business partners as one form of poison in the well of public education. They see the coporatization and privitization (see the article on the BP deal) of research as another form of poison. They see the demolition of a local healthy ecosystem that was free and open to the public to be replaced by a concrete gymnasium to be used by an elite handful of people is yet another poison in the well. But even as the poison manifests in different forms- ecological destruction, privitization of public knowledge and self-serving regents, it consistently performs the same function- it blows out the light of creativity, cooperation, wisdom and compassion for the diverse yet interdependent forms of life that create our University community. This poison, embodied in the motto “let their be light for a few” requires the destruction, absorption and exslusive realocation of light from the infinitely diverse life-system at large to a select few, as if this light were a scarce resource.
So a young woman and a Native American elder scaled a tree to mount a David and Goliath battle against this theft of light. Since the sit began, thousands of supporters have brought their own light to the grove to help sit, support on the ground, prepare food, offer warm beds to weary tree sitters, provide legal council, play music, make friends and too become inspired by the “treevolutionary” spirit. Students have been invloved too. On September 14th 34 students were arrested for scaling the first fence the University erected around the grove, in protest of its being closed to the public.
Currently (as of January,2008) there are two fences topped with barbed wire that enclose the grove. Security gaurds, whose hours are being scaled back in order to deny them benefits, are stationed at the treesit 24 hours a day in order to arrest sitters or any ground support who provide them with food or water. The treesitters are awaiting the results of Judge Barbara Miller’s decision, who will rule on the fate of the grove and the proposed $125 million dollar sports facility. Filing law suites against the University was a strategy lodged by the California Oak Foundation, the Panoramic Hill Association and the City of Berkeley to stop the grove’s destruction and the facilitity’s construction. Judge Miller issued a preliminary injunction in January 2007 to stop construction because the three groups alleged the Regents violated the Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault Zoning Act and the California Environmental Quality Act in approving plans for the sports center. The 1972 state seismic law bans new construction on earthquake faults and limits "additions or alterations to less than 50 percent of the value of the structure. We are currently waiting to see if she will stop the project for good. Until then the sitters will continue to live in the grove, where each night they are bombared by the artificial light of generator powered flood lights. These loud and obnoxious concentrations of artificial light are currently the signature of our University. The treesititters, whose light shines from within, organically and abundantly, is the signature of an alternative movement to “shed light” but this alternative, is for the illumination of light on and within all members of the University and Berkeley community.
- Late in the fall of '06 the university announced plans to construct a high-tech athletic training facility to better meet the needs of Cal’s distinguished student athletes. This was to take place upon a mature grove of 42 trees adjacent to the Memorial Stadium on Piedmont Ave. Jess Everything, Zachary Runningwolf and Ayr, three Berkeley activists, got wind of the plans and decided to experiment with a tree sit as a way of saving this urban forest. Equipped with Carribeaners, harnesses and their inner light of hope, they began the longest running urban tree sit. Over the past year, with media coverage spanning from the New York Times to the Hindustani times, the treesitters have successfully raised public concern about the University’s contradictory practices of elevating the needs of an isolated elite few, over the well being of the diverse life-systems that the public still expects it to serve. Just like spotted owls are an indicator species of the health of an eco-system, the treesitters see themselves as an indicator species of the health of this public university. They see the regents as an elite few serving the needs of their wealthy friends as business partners as one form of poison in the well of public education. They see the coporatization and privitization (see the article on the BP deal) of research as another form of poison. They see the demolition of a local healthy ecosystem that was free and open to the public to be replaced by a concrete gymnasium to be used by an elite handful of people is yet another poison in the well. But even as the poison manifests in different forms- ecological destruction, privitization of public knowledge and self-serving regents, it consistently performs the same function- it blows out the light of creativity, cooperation, wisdom and compassion for the diverse yet interdependent forms of life that create our University community. This poison, embodied in the motto “let their be light for a few” requires the destruction, absorption and exslusive realocation of light from the infinitely diverse life-system at large to a select few, as if this light were a scarce resource.