FEATURED POST

Stay Tuned For The Launch Of My New Book! COMING IN MAY 2026:

WHAT IT’S ABOUT: It’s often said that urban trees are the only form of city infrastructure that actually increase in value and capacity over time. So why have so many North American cities historically underfunded their care and maintenance? And why do we continue to indiscriminately mow down city trees – and entire urban forests? In Out On A Limb , Erna Buffie answers these questions and more as she explores the secret lives and extraordinary benefits of urban trees, the c

2 days ago1 min read

TRAIN OF THOUGHT

Stay Tuned For The Launch Of My New Book! COMING IN MAY 2026:

2 days ago1 min read

Who Calls The Shots On City Land Use

Downtown Winnipeg Everybody thinks it, but no one wants to say it out loud – the fact that for decades, our city council and its administration have, to a large degree, been in thrall to the construction and development industries. And on one level, you can understand why. After all, these are the folks who build things – everything from high rises, homes and sewer plants to the endless kilometers of roads that service our over-expanded city. But while the construction and de

6 days ago4 min read

Developers Say Protection is “For The Birds”

So, something pretty unusual happened to me today. I got an email from Margaret Atwood. And before you ask, no, it wasn’t a personal letter, it was a mass email sent out to solicit donations to protect Canada’s resident and migratory birds. Atwood it turns out is an avid bird watcher and like a lot of us is acutely concerned about a North American bird population that’s plummeting. The reasons behind that rapid decline are both simple and complex, including everything from ha

Dec 23, 20253 min read

Mayors Can Be Frontline “Climate Doers” – Just Not In Winnipeg

Sadiq Khan ,Mayor of London, UK at the 2025 C40 meeting of mayors A few weeks ago, 300 city mayors gathered in Rio de Janeiro ahead of COP 30 to reaffirm their pledge to take decisive action on climate change. They’re called the C40, an organization that began in 2005 when 40 mayors from 40 cities met to discuss the role municipalities could play in fighting climate change. Since then the organization has expanded and is closely aligned with the 14,000 cities that now belong

Dec 6, 20253 min read

A Bad Budget for Climate and Nature

To say I’m disappointed with the new federal budget would be the understatement of the year. Truth is, I’m frustrated and angry, not just because of what’s in the budget but by what has been cut and what is glaringly absent. In the glaringly absent department are the environment and nature. That’s reflected in the decision to axe the 2 billion tree fund which did exemplary work in helping to expand urban forests to enhance climate resiliency. Add to that the fact that there a

Nov 20, 20254 min read

Building a Safer City

Avenue Mont-Royal in Montreal, a car free zone It’s a well-known fact that our city council throws a lot of money at the police in their efforts to keep us safe. But is more investment in policing and surveillance cameras really the only way to create a safer city or is it just the easy, “I don’t have to think about it too hard” way to reassure the populace that something’s being done to protect them? I think it’s the latter, and so do a lot of social and urban planning exper

Nov 11, 20253 min read

Time For a Shake Up at City Hall

Mayor Scott Gillingham and Finance Chair, Jeff Browaty, of “Joe Lunchbox” fame. I don’t know how many of you remember this, but our current mayor, Scott Gillingham, won his position in the 2022 civic election with just 27% of the vote, the smallest vote share for any mayor in recent history. Some 53% of Winnipeg voters chose, instead, to cast their ballots for one of the more progressive center-left candidates. And if the two progressive mayoral candidates hadn’t split the vo

Oct 13, 20253 min read

Welcome to My Blog! It’s time to talk about nature, climate, and a whole host of other things!

They call me “the tree lady” - I’ve been called worse! - because I’m passionate about protecting and expanding Winnipeg’s urban forest. But first and foremost, I’m writer, filmmaker and environmental activist with a wide range of interests. In addition to publishing a novel and short stories, I’ve written and directed more than a dozen award-winning science and nature documentaries for CBC’s The Nature of Things With David Suzuki.

Recently, I’ve written a series of opinion editorials for The Winnipeg Free Press on urban issues, from climate change and trees to downtown renewal.

Contact

FEATURED POST

Stay Tuned For The Launch Of My New Book! COMING IN MAY 2026:

TRAIN OF THOUGHT

Stay Tuned For The Launch Of My New Book! COMING IN MAY 2026:

Who Calls The Shots On City Land Use

Developers Say Protection is “For The Birds”

Mayors Can Be Frontline “Climate Doers” – Just Not In Winnipeg

A Bad Budget for Climate and Nature

Building a Safer City

Time For a Shake Up at City Hall

ABOUT ME

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