Erna Buffie is a writer, environmental activist and documentary filmmaker, who worked with CBC's The Nature of Things for more than 20 years. Her award-winning films include, among others: Smarty Plants - The Secret World of Plant Behaviour and T he Changing Sea . Past chair of Trees Please Winnipeg Coalition, she now writes regular opinion editorials for The Winnipeg Free Press on politics and the environment. Her novel, Let Us Be True , was nominated for the Margaret Laurence Fiction Prize and reissued by Shadowpaw Press in 2024. That year, she was also awarded the Winnipeg 150 medal for her community work, as well as the Council of Women's Celebrating Women Award. A self-professed tree hugger, she and her partner live in Winnipeg, under the shade of a towering boulevard elm, with their Shih Tzu, Ollie, and spend their summers in a small lakeside cabin tucked into the boreal forest.