Berkeley: Save Our Oaks.. off with the fence

50 people held a prayer vigil this evening at the site of the sacred oaks on the UC Berkeley campus, demanding that they be preserved to honor the Ohlone people who used the area as a burial ground. Supplies were delivered to the tree-sitters, while protesters lit candles and burned sage. Sections of the chain link fences erected by the campus while a court case is decided were dismantled during the vigil. UC police moved in and violently arrested three people.

The Memorial Grove is a native California Coast Live Oak ecosystem. The grove is part of a National Historic Site, a memorial to Californians who died in World War I, and it was also recently revealed that 18 Native American burials were discovered under the stadium in 1923.

UC work crews continue to construct new larger fences around the Memorial Oak Grove in anticipation of forcibly extracting tree-sit protesters from the grove. UC has stated that the fences are needed for “security reasons” prior to an extraction attempt. As a result of the fence, tree-sitters are forced to use traverse lines to enter and exit their perch, which has led to one tree-sitter being hospitalized after a fall on November 11th.

Tree-sitters are standing by on alert for an impending siege of the grove.

Judge Barbara Miller is expected to return her decision any day in the lawsuits against the stadium expansion project which would level the grove. UC Berkeley officials have stated that no matter what Judge Miller decides the University will try to end the tree-sit protest.

The Memorial Grove Tree-Sit is by far the longest ongoing urban tree-sit protest in history, now approaching its one year anniversary on December 2nd.