For indigenous communities in the Northwest Territories, traditional foods like fish, moose and geese are both a vital source of nutrition and an integral part of culture and heritage. However, they can also expose populations to environmental contaminants like mercury, cadmium and persistent organic pollutants.
Assistant Professor Brian Laird is leading a biomonitoring project in Canada’s subarctic to evaluate people’s exposure to these contaminants and assess the risks to their health. By collecting blood, hair and urine samples, he is measuring toxicant levels in the human body and developing ways to sustain traditional food harvesting while reducing exposure to chemicals in the environment.
