Sarah Harmer 'Green Heroes' Enviro Doc Premieres at Toronto Festival

Fans who had been waiting for Sarah Harmer to release her recent 'Oh Little Fire' album may have wondered why the veteran singer-songwriter was taking so long between records -- after all, it had been five years since her last album. But those who closely followed Harmer's career knew she had quietly established a sideline as a devoted environmental activist, dedicating her time and energy towards campaigning for the preservation of the Niagara Escarpment area of Ontario where she grew up and still resides.

Her fight to protect a part of the escarpment on Mount Nemo in Burlington, Ontario is the subject of a new short documentary film 'Green Heroes: Sarah Harmer' that premieres this week at Toronto's annual enviro-themed film festival Planet in Focus and is part of a new television series, 'Green Heroes,' debuting on the TVOntario channel in November which profiles eco-activists making a difference in their communities.

In the film, which includes live concert footage and interview clips, Harmer explains how she became a conservationist after seeing large tracts of land in the escarpment area torn up for construction material. She began to research the area, which is a UNESCO-appointed world biosphere site, and co-founded the organization PERL (Protecting Escarpment Rural Land), which organizes an annual benefit concert each year featuring some of Harmer's high-profile peers like Bruce Cockburn and Barenaked Ladies.

The escarpment, which has existed for millions of years in its pristine natural state of forest and wetlands, is home to 40 percent of Ontario's rare species and trees that are over a thousand years old. The site, in danger of commercial development, inspired some of the material on Harmer's last bluegrass-inflected album, 'I'm A Mountain,' including 'Escarpment Blues'. That tune also gave way to a Juno Award-winning concert and documentary DVD of the same name that documented a tour Harmer undertook in support of the cause in 2006.