Tree sitting is a form of environmentalist civil disobedience in which a protester sits in a tree, usually on a small platform built for the purpose, to protect it from being cut down (speculating that loggers will not endanger human lives by cutting an occupied tree). Supporters usually provide the tree sitters with food and other supplies.

About

Tree sitting is a strategy that provides a high level of public attention since it is considered to be very dangerous and requires highly skilled police officers to evict the sitters. Tree sitting is often used as a stalling tactic, to prevent the cutting of trees while lawyers fight in the courts to secure the long-term victories. Tree-sitting was once a children's pastime. In the early 1930s, when endurance contests raged across the U.S., it became a child's contest for kids to climb into their backyard trees and, serviced by siblings and local businesses, attempt to win prizes for the longest sit.

Extractions

Tree-sitters in trees claimed by Pacific Lumber in Humboldt County have been subject to forced removal by hired extractors. The practice started with a single extractor in the late 1990s but in 2003 Pacific Lumber hired teams of climbers to remove dozens of tree-sitters, particularly in the Freshwater area East of Eureka, California. Most of the extractions in Northern California are done under the leadership of Eric Schatz of Schatz Tree Service, a well known professional arborist. In May 2021, RCMP forces in Canada extracted treesitters on Vancouver Island by flying a helicopter dangerously low above the trees and dropping ERT officers in the canopies or down on long lines to forcibly remove those occupying the sits. There was no communication, safety precautions taken, or research done into the stability of the sits prior to the helicopter landing. Until this point in time treesits had been extracted by girth hitching, shooting lines into trees, or waiting for those occupying the trees to come down.

List of tree sits

Some of the more notable tree sittings include:

US

Sweden

Australia

New Zealand (Aotearoa)

UK

Canada

Germany

Ireland

Netherlands

Tree villages

A tree village is an extension of the tree sitting protest, involving several tree houses. The "Fern Gully" in Northern California lasted over 20 years, ending in 2008 with agreement not to fell the stand of old growth redwood trees.

Tree houses

In the United Kingdom tree houses have sometimes been occupied for a year or longer. One treehouse, BattleStar Galactica at the Manchester International Airport, held 12 people. Such tree houses often have lock-on points for protesters to chain themselves to during evictions. Such tree houses have been used at Newbury bypass, Crystal Palace and Epsom.