New York Times: Berkeley Tree Protesters Climb Down

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By Jesse McKinley

In a peaceful end to a treetop standoff, four protesters descended from a redwood at University at California, Berkeley, on Tuesday, after 21 months of occupying a contested campus grove.  Protesters had hoped to stop the construction of a $124-million athletic center, but a court injunction on the construction had recently been lifted. A final protester, wearing a backpack and waving to a large crowd of onlookers below, crawled down from a rickety crow’s nest just hours after campus workers erected a scaffolding around the grove’s one of two remaining trees.  All four tree-sitters were arrested, though campus officials said no felony charges were expected to be filed. Five protesters were also arrested on the ground, according to Berkeley police, and charged with a variety of offenses, including battery and resisting arrest.

Dan Mogulof, a university spokesman, expressed relief that the lengthy protest was over, adding that the university would consult with the local community in future land use decisions. “We look forward to beginning construction,” he said.  The tree-sitters’ tree, one of a collection of 42 oaks, redwoods and others that protesters had sought to save, was scheduled to be felled late Tuesday. The other, a mature redwood, will be transplanted, Mr. Mogulof said.  The tree-sit had attracted attention well beyond Berkeley and its campus, where protests are as common as mid-terms. Local newscasts broke into regular programming on Tuesday as it became apparent that the tree-sit might end, even as university police hemmed in protesters with their scaffolding and attempted to negotiate.

“The bottom line was that we wanted them to be safe,” said Victoria Harrison, the university’s chief of police, who spoke to the protesters from a platform suspended from a crane. “And we wanted them to come down.” Doug Buckwald, a spokesman for Save the Oaks, which had sued to stop the construction, said that his group would continue to press the university on environmental and earthquake safety issues related to the athletic center and the adjacent Memorial Stadium, a 1923 structure which sits on the Hayward Fault.

He also said he hoped the protest might inspire political action in other arenas.  “When people see people standing up and taking a stand, it gives them the courage to envision possibilities in their own places,” he said. “And I saw that in the oak grove.”