Her earliest work as a environmentalist was when she became active in the fight against aerial herbicide spraying against the spruce budworm. May led a group of 15 landowners in a court fight against Swedish forestry giant Stora, which sought to spray unsafe chemicals. In 2001, she went on a 17-day hunger strike to protest the government's failure to clean up the Sydney tar ponds in Cape Breton. As a result the federal government pledged to relocate people living nearby to a safer location. She is friends with Bill Clinton who attended the UN Climate Change Conference in 2005 with her.