Tree House: Why One Woman Spent 14 Months in a Eucalyptus

Four hundred and forty nine days, to be precise. Armed with a solar panel and her laptop, Tasmanian activist Miranda Gibson took to the treetops in December, 2011, committed to securing legislative protection for the threatened forests of the Tyenna Valley. She vowed to live, blog, and campaign in the canopy of a 400-year-old eucalyptus tree, known as “The Observer,” until the old-growth forests were designated a World Heritage Site. Pressure on the Australian government from Gibson and members of the Greens Party led to the nomination of the forests in February 2013, whose World Heritage status was eventually confirmed in June. The decision extended the wilderness boundaries over 170,000 hectares, giving the area the highest level of environmental protection in the world. Old-growth eucalyptus forests, which are critical to a number of endangered and endemic Tasmanian species, have been viciously logged since the nineteenth century. Logging will continue in old-growth areas deemed “less contentious” by the Environment Minister, Tony Burke.

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