OTTAWA — Elizabeth May, one of the country's best-known environmental activists, is pondering a run for leadership of the floundering Green Party of Canada.

Current leader Jim Harris hasn't said if he will run again in an automatic leadership vote at the party's August convention in Ottawa. There is speculation he may not stand given the party's disappointing results in the January election.

Despite having access to substantial federal funding for the first time, the party won no seats and achieved only a slight improvement in its share of the popular vote, to 4.5 per cent from 4.3 per cent in 2004.

Harris's leadership has been marked by fierce infighting, questions about his credibility as an environmentalist and threats of legal action against party members who criticized him,

May, who resigned as executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada earlier this month, has played a leading role in Canada's environmental battles for more than 15 years.

She confirmed in an interview this week she is seriously considering a run at the Green leadership, but admitted to worries about entering the sometimes vicious world of partisan politics.

So far there is only one declared candidate in the Green leadership race -- David Chernushenko, a Ottawa consultant who got 10 per cent of the vote in the riding of Ottawa Centre in January.

May won't say a bad word about him, calling him a respected friend.

Chernushenko for his part says he expects the race to attract strong competition. "It's a job that people want; it's no longer a question of can we get someone to take it."

There has been talk that broadcaster and scientist David Suzuki might enter the race, but he laughs it off, pointing out that he is now 70.

"I'm really too old. I must admit . . . politics as a career has never, ever appealed to me and I know I'd really be bad at it. I think Elizabeth running for that party is a great idea and I certainly encourage her to do that.

"I don't think they could ignore her for the debates, and I think she would show that the Greens are more than just a one-issue party.''

A graduate of the Dalhousie law school, May began her career as an adviser to former Conservative environment minister Tom McMillan, but resigned after exposing a deal to grant illegal permits for the Rafferty and Alameda dams in Saskatchewan.

She declined to discuss party strategy until she has decided whether to run, but was more forthcoming about the Conservatives' slashing of federal programs designed to implement the Kyoto protocol.

"You keep pumping out fossil fuel emissions and greenhouse gases, you can get catastrophic impacts that are global. I dont think that's understood.

"If some foreign power threatened to take away as much of our coastline and Arctic as is threatened by the results of our own emissions of fossil fuels, we'd be ready to arm ourselves to the teeth.''

A persuasive public speaker and debater who has written four books and received two honourary doctorates, May has a vast network of contacts including former U.S. president Bill Clinton, who attended the Montreal climate conference in December at her request.

In 2001 she went on a 17-day hunger strike to protest lack of government action to clean up the Sydney tar ponds in Cape Breton. Last year she was named an officer of the Order of Canada.