Budworks(1978)

Budworks is a documentary examining Canada's decades-long battle against the spruce budworm through aerial insecticide spraying. Beginning in New Brunswick in 1952, the practice expanded across eastern Canada throughout the 1980s, becoming a flashpoint between competing interests. The film profiles both those who defend the spraying as essential forest management and activists who oppose it, while investigating the government's role in the program, its economic drivers, and the health consequences of widespread chemical application. By exploring the perspectives of sprayers and anti-sprayers alike, Budworks reveals how a single environmental crisis divided communities and raised urgent questions about industrial forestry, public health, and the long-term costs of chemical intervention in nature.