Matthew Higginson's posts

We want to see the urban forest for the trees! And we want to see them through your eyes. So we’re launching a series to highlight our favourite photos. Each month we will choose one, but the goal is that they are all provided by you! So get out your cameras and snap emblematic shots that speak to what it feels like in our streets, parks and alley ways.

Last fall as Superstorm Sandy hit the east coast like a "chainsaw on methamphetamines," some neighbourhoods lost as much as ninety per cent of their urban forests. And as Sandy passed over the five Boroughs of New York City, 8,500 trees and many more damaged limbs fell into the streets. The mess she left behind and the subsequent flooding upset crucial watersheds, threatening the public water supply. But as soon as the winds died down, residents, rescue teams and even a few folks from above the border were working to restore order.

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.