This weekend’s video is the official trailer for the award winning and stunning documentary People of a Feather, about the unique relationship between Eider ducks and the Inuit on the Belcher Islands in Canada’s Hudson Bay, and how that relationship is disrupted by massive hydroelectric dams powering New York and eastern North America. The film will be screened on Monday evening May 13, and will be followed by a panel discussion on Muskrat Falls, where local Indigenous people face mercury poisoning so that Newfoundland and Nova Scotia politicians can claim that through “clean and green” energy they are fighting climate change.

The latest on the prosecution of journalist Justin Brake, and how you can help. Muskrat Falls may help our province meet its green energy targets, but at what cost? Brake’s reporting raised that uncomfortable question, and for doing so he deserves our support.

This weekend we feature In the shadow of the dam, APTN’s brand new and excellent documentary on the indigenous resistance to the Muskrat Falls project in Labrador. You can’t condemn environmental racism and violation of Indigenous rights in Nova Scotia, and remain silent on what’s happening in Labrador right now. It’s that simple.

Justin Brake​, the fearless Newfoundland and Labrador journalist for the TheIndependent.ca​ is facing jail for reporting on an occupation of Nalcor buildings at Muskrat Falls by indigenous people. Everybody should care, and Nova Scotians doubly so, because through the Maritime Link these things are a lot closer than they appear.

In this short 2018 video Molly Leblanc, a species at risk and biodiversity biologist with Coastal Action, talks about the roughly one million ounces of mercury left behind by mining companies in Nova Scotia, typically dumped in nearby wetlands.

“I’m starting with the little critters low on the food chain, wetland insects. What I found is that insects from these goldmine sites have mercury levels 50 times higher than insects from clean healthy wetlands. And in species like dragonflies and mayflies, which shed their skin, hatch in the water and fly away.”

Environmentalists have long argued that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not only an urgent and critical necessity for our planet’s survival, it’s also good for the economy. Now a new report by the Ecolgy Action Centre quantifies these benefits. It’s an excellent piece of work, and very necessary to help focus the discussion we need to have. However, the report does not go far enough in terms of environmental justice and tackling the dominance of car culture.

More in our interview series on the state of journalism in Nova Scotia. I talk with APTN’s Angel Moore about doing journalism for a mostly Indigenous audience. “It’s not my job to change preconceptions. It’s my job to tell stories about the community for the community. However, when I’m writing a story, the potential negative comments and the racist comments on social media are always on my mind. I’m very aware and I’m very careful of that.”