I'm at the final day of the Planet in Focus Film Festival. Poetry - visual, verbal and written - draws me in, occupying two of my five senses. Popcorn takes the rest. Quebec filmmaker Réal Junior Leblanc’s short finishes and I haven’t taken a single note. From the first frame his work, drawing on indigenous culture, highlights an intense relationship with the natural world.
With your support, encouragement, and on the ground efforts we've been voted Toronto’s Best Activist Organization in Now Magazine for the past two years. Once again, we are amongst some amazing nominees, but we want you to help us defend the title!
The Guelph Urban Forest Friends (GUFF) is a group of citizen-based activists who took local tree preservation into their own hands. When faced with the city’s decision to cut down more than 20 mature trees we organized an action to preserve one of the remaining mature trees using a group of five bikes.
We are fortunate to go to school in the heart of urban Toronto. Recently our green industries class had an opportunity to explore the biodiversity in our area, and Amanda Gomm from LEAF came to our school to share her knowledge.
In the spring of 2010, I was volunteering at a LEAF table when someone from the neighbourhood approached me. She had noticed that the newly planted trees along St. Clair Avenue West were dying. Riding past that night, I saw examples of trees that had died brutal deaths: their trunks had imploded in the cold weather. I went home and wept.
