November 18, 2014 – Fredericton, New Brunswick – Environment Canada
The Honourable Keith Ashfield, Member of Parliament for Fredericton, on behalf of the Honorable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of the Environment, Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency and Minister for the Arctic Council, announced today the Government of Canada will contribute $280,000 to support work on new innovations in environmental monitoring.
The contribution is being provided to the University of New Brunswick’s Canadian Rivers Institute to support its work on the development of new gene-based environmental monitoring method that is more cost-effective and accurate than other observation techniques.
This method will follow the protocols of the Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network (CABIN) and will focus on the water quality monitoring area of the Joint Oil Sands Monitoring Program. CABIN training and certification will then enable any agency with a mandate in watershed science (i.e. volunteers, First Nations, academics, consultants, industry, provincial/territorial departments) to collect consistent and credible ecosystem health data across Canada.
The benefit to the greater watershed science community will be the development of improved field methods, which could lead to substantial cost savings and reduce the turnaround time for biological data monitoring programs.
Ted Laking
Director of Communications
Office of the Minister of the Environment
819-997-1441
Media Relations
Environment Canada
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