IRES has partnered with 20 researchers and collaborators from Canada and Aotearoa (New Zealand) on a large international research initiative that puts Indigenous experts as leaders in designing how chemical risk is evaluated and managed. This collaborative project seeks to re-envision chemical risk management in a time of environmental crisis.
The urgent need to reduce emissions of climate-changing gases and pollutants requires innovative approaches to chemical risk management. Forming sustainable environmental relationships for future generations is at the heart of Indigenous approaches to caring for land, waters, air, and each other. The “Transforming Chemical Risk Management with Indigenous Expertise” initiative brings Indigenous research methods to this challenge to boldly transform chemical risk management in Indigenous community-based practice, university labs and classes, regulatory practices, and policy development.
“Our research centers Indigenous expertise in transforming chemicals management, which is urgently needed. It gives me hope for the future!” says Gunilla Öberg, who co-leads the initiative.
She adds, “Our approach flips the script on how Indigenous people are involved in chemical risk management. Typically they are consulted after harm has happened, or they are studied by non-indigenous experts as research subjects whose blood and hair are sampled. This project changes this narrative. We are putting Indigenous knowledge into the heart and start of chemical risk assessment.”
As outdated methodologies like animal testing are being replaced with new ones, the importance of Indigenous knowledge about land, water, animals and plants is crucial—the project creates Indigenous methods for assessing chemical risk. By bringing diverse Indigenous knowledges together in solidarity and co-learning with non-indigenous participants, the research program develops protocols, tools, and policies for chemical risk management in Canada, New Zealand, and at the international policy level. With a focus on intergenerational impact and transformation, the program will train the next generation of Indigenous and non-Indigenous chemical risk professionals to lead chemical risk assessments for their communities and beyond.
This research marks an innovative shift by placing Indigenous leadership at the forefront of chemical-risk evaluation — expertise that is rarely included in frameworks under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), EU’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), and the US’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
Supported by a federal New Frontiers in Research Fund Grant, the project includes researchers at the University of Toronto, Guelph University, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Calgary in Canada, and the Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research Institute, the University of Auckland in Aotearoa (New Zealand), as well as Indigenous elders and knowledge holders from several Indigenous communities in Canada, and collaborators at Health Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada, New Zealand’s Environmental Protection Authority; the Policy Manager at New Zealand Ministry for the Environment and the New Zealand Parliamentary Commissioner, and Te Ao Mārama Inc., a mandated Māori organization that supports local tribal members in environmental matters including mitigating chemical pollution.
This funding offers an urgent and precious opportunity for Indigenous communities to create tools, methods, and expertise that serve their needs and visions. The project innovatively takes the approach of learning on the land and features Indigenous community researchers as experts in their lands.
Two subprojects will be conducted at IRES:
- “Linking Indigenous experiences on chemicals policy development across scales”, co-led by Dr. Amanda Giang. This subproject will look at current needs to extend Indigenous involvement in chemicals policy development, from the regional to international scales.
- “Curriculum development”, co-led by Dr. Gunilla Öberg, will reimagine the training of the next generation of chemical risk assessment professionals by designing and evaluating teaching materials for undergraduate and graduate students in relevant fields (e.g., (eco)toxicology, chemistry, endocrinology, AI/machine learning), focusing on chemical risk management practices that are ethical and informed by Indigenous Knowledge Systems.
The lead PI for the overall project is Professor M. Murphy (Red River Métis) of University of Toronto, along with Sue Chiblow (Garden River First Nation) of Guelph University, and Gunilla Öberg (recent settler from Sweden) of UBC, stewarded by the Technoscience Research Unit (TRU) at the University of Toronto.