Mining Ecogenomics for a Sustainable Canadian North (GENOSCAN): a new project by Véronic Landry and Damase Khasa
New North Sentinel Project
Project Summary
The northern region is a bio-cultural heritage landscape, rich in natural resources and discrete Aboriginal communities. According to the Conference Board of Canada report, Canada’s North is expected to become a mining powerhouse within the next decade. In Quebec, the Plan Nord 2035 is a key component of a major strategy to stimulate economic recovery and maximize economic benefits through strong participation and inclusion of Aboriginal peoples. The government plans total investments of up to $50 billion by 2035, with approximately $3.6 billion invested in 2019 alone. However, this region is very sensitive and fragile to anthropogenic activities such as mining.
Project activities aim to:
- understand the impacts of mining activities amplified by climate change on soil-plant microbiomes of Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems, through the development and application of new omics tools;
- Apply and validate the EcoChip platform, developed as part of a North Sentinel-funded project for the first time in the mining sector, to monitor environmental health through data streams acquired over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales;
- Analyze omics megadata using bioinformatics and artificial intelligence learning algorithms to accurately develop predictive and early warning models;
- Integrate omics solutions into the northern mining sector through transdisciplinary approaches, taking into account social acceptability and governance issues;
- effectively communicate and transfer research results to northern users.
To know more about the project…
Picture from Sentinelle Nord