Miranda Gibson has spent a year up a tree

SHE uses a little composting toilet, and a solar panel for her computer and phone. Protester Miranda Gibson tells us what it's like to live in a tree.

Miranda Gibson

SHE uses a little composting toilet, and a solar panel for her computer and phone. Protester Miranda Gibson tells us what it's like to live in a tree.

Miranda Gibson has been up a tree for a year.

When Prime Minister Julia Gillard lost her shoe, when Kony went viral, and when Sandy swept through the US and Obama swept to power, she was up a tree.

The 31-year-old lives on a 3m platform wrapped around the trunk of an old-growth Eucalyptus in Tasmania's southern forest. She's suspended by ropes 60m above the ground.

It's a one-woman protest – she has vowed to stay there until the Tasmanian forest is protected from logging – she says it's under imminent threat this summer, and she'll stay as long as it takes.

But she's hoping it won't be too much longer.

For the one-year anniversary she was thanked by musicians Nick Cave, John Butler and Blue King Brown, as well as former Greens leader – that other Brown, Bob – and a US activist called Julia Butterfly Hill.

Miranda Gibson

News.com.au asked her how it feels, a year on.

"It's definitely mixed emotions. It's been an incredible, unique experience to be in the tree for a whole year," she said.

"It's been hard along the way. One of the sad things is the reality that I still need to be here, that the forest hasn't been protected and I don't know how long I'm going to be here for."

A ‘peace deal' to protect the native forest has just gone to a committee in the Tasmanian Parliament, with conservationists pitted against forest workers in an embittered battle.

So Ms Gibson stays in her tree.

She has a compost set up for a toilet, and a small solar panel so she can run her phone and her computer.

People visit and send up home-cooked meals – and even some ice cream, last week.

"One of the hardest things about being up here is the isolation, being away from family and friends. I'm looking forward to getting down and spending time with them," she said.

"I don't really think too much (about leaving the tree). The moment you start to think about what it would be like to give in, it just makes it harder.

"It's kind of a unique experience – most people wouldn't have the opportunity to see the forest from this perspective. People struggle to imagine life in a tree, and that's one of the good things about the blog (The Observer Tree), I can tell them why I live up here."

She has seen the forest blanketed in snow, and watched the birds and the wildlife, and fears that one day she'll hear the rumbling of the logging machinery.

News.com.au asked her what she'll do when she finally reaches terra firma, when the forests are safe and she can come back down.

"I don't know. I've put my whole life on hold. I don't know what it'll be like when I get to the ground," she said.