US folk singer Baez occupies tree to save garden
Folk singer Joan Baez and tree-sitter Julia “Butterfly” Hill have taken up residence in a tree to raise awareness about a 14-acre US urban farm threatened with demolition.
Hill, who lived in a redwood in Northern California for more than two years to prevent loggers from cutting it down, said she, Baez and others would occupy the Los Angeles tree in shifts.
Two door-size platforms have been placed in the tree for the sitters, and a support group has set up an encampment on the ground.
Hundreds of farmers could face eviction after The Trust for Public Land came up $10m (€7.8m) short in its bid to buy the site.
The non-profit group was not able to raise the $16.35m (€12.7m) required by the time the purchase option expired on Monday.
The trust signed a contract in April with landowner Ralph Horowitz to buy most of the site in south Los Angeles where about 350 families, most of them working-class immigrants from Central America, tend small plots of fruits and vegetables.
