Guiding Principles
- Document, promote and incorporate traditional knowledge of nutrition and environment
- Respond to concerns of local communities on their food, food use and environment
- Develop participatory relationships between communities and scientists for undertaking research in nutrition and ecosystems
- Encourage continuing consultation, communication and recognition of elders to enhance the relevance of CINE's work
- Implement ethics guidelines for research, including those related to intellectual property rights as adopted by University Councils and the CINE Board
- Provide training to students and other residents of local communities
- Communicate research findings widely, both nationally and internationally, and contribute to policy developments in areas related to the CINE mission
Basic contributions
- Work towards quantifying nutrients, non-nutrients and contaminant levels in traditional food systems
- Contribute to the understanding of the many health benefits associated with consumption of traditional food resources, as well as health risk from contaminants
- Contribute to the development of techniques to identify trends in deterioration in quality of traditional food systems, and to suggest possible remedial actions
- Contribute to the development of the necessary tools, methods and protocols for nutritional and related environmental studies
- Undertake collaborative international research and exchange among Indigenous Peoples on CINE issues
Within McGill University
- Serve as a focus for information exchange and cooperation among interdisciplinary McGill staff and communities of Indigenous Peoples to address issues of food systems, nutrition and environment in research and education
- Contribute to university education at pre- and post-graduate levels in disciplines related to studies in nutrition and the environment
- Ensure that faculty and staff are full and contributing members within the McGill community, and to scholarly communities to which they belong