Join Liz Miller (a filmmaker and professor in Communication Studies at Concordia University) as she follows three interdisciplinary scholars who have been studying an undervalued green space in Montreal called La Falaise St. Jacques.

Ecologist Carly Ziter, biologist Emma Despland and political scientist Amy Poteete are studying and engaging with sites around Montreal that are unceremoniously known as “terrain vague” or “wastelands”. While these places may seem scrubby or overgrown, they are anything but waste to the local residents who use and care for them.

This story explores questions of value-- ecological, climatic and social-- that have marked and continue to mark the ongoing transformation of the Falaise.

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Worth Defending: Falaise St Jacques is a production of WasteScapes, a collection of projects that aim to critically engage with waste and waste systems in the city of Tioh:tiáke/ Montréal, Canada.

This product is part of the collaborative research project called “Enhancing Biodiversity, Social Inclusion and Climate Resilience through informal urban green spaces”.

The project is supported by a Sustainable Transitions Team Research Initiative and is funded by Concordia’s Sustainability Action Plan with additional support from the Loyola Sustainability Research Centre. We also have support from the Canada Summer Jobs program through a project with UrbaNature.

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The episode was produced by Liz Miller and Anna Sigrithur and narrated by me, Liz Miller. Research, editing, and mixing was by Anna Sigrithur.

Music in this episode was from Blue Dot Sessions.

Thanks to our guests, Carly Ziter, Emma Despland and Amy Poteete, as well as Karen Fisher Favret, Rebecca Tittler, Evan Gonzalez-Fleurant, and Ashley Spanier-Levasseur.

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Find out more about WasteScapes by visiting www.wastescapes.com

Visit the Falaise and experience the places mentioned in this episode! Simply download the free, interactive WasteScapes App for a guided tour of the Falaise:

Download in the Apple App store. Download in the Google Play store.