Grant: Alliance Grants

Project Fish Forever is a collaborative scientific initiative based in Trent University's TRACE lab and the Water Quality Centre, in partnership the not-for-profit Onakawana Education Fund and the Yargeau Lab, McGill University. The goal of this project is to empower Canada's settler and Indigenous communities to become active participants in a first ever cross-country community-based monitoring of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination in fish through the establishment of fish monitoring and surveillance hubs across Canada targeting PFAS (and eventually other contaminants of concern to the peoples near the hub). This project is designed to help shape a future where all Canadians can fish both for subsistence and recreation, without the fear that their health is impacted by consuming contaminated fish. Our two-year pilot includes establishing sampling hubs on the West Coast in collaboration with Salmon Coast Research Station, hubs in the Great Lakes, in collaboration with Chippewas of Nawash Unceeded First Nation and Michipicoten First Nation, as well as a hub in the James Bay Lowlands in partnership with Camp OnakAwana. This project will further the knowledge of PFAS in fish with a focus on areas where fish are a significant cultural and/or subsistence food source. Centering citizen participation, beginning with a focus on this research equitably benefiting Indigenous communities, this project will be driven by the needs and concerns of communities and apply their long-held knowledge of the land, waters, and relations with fish. Community input and knowledge will guide future investigations and how the project will continue past the two pilot years.