Manger notre Saint-Laurent (MSL) website

As part of Manger notre Saint-Laurent activities (MSL, Sustenance from our St. Lawrence) funded by the Réseau Québec Maritime (RQM), we co-designed an innovative web-based prototype of a website to facilitate informed choices about consuming edible resources from the St. Lawrence based on their seasonal and regional availability, food safety, nutrition, and sustainability. This prototype was co-designed with four coastal Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities (Cap-Chat, Sainte-Thérèse-de-Gaspé, îles-de-la-Madeleine, and Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk First Nation) and regional stakeholders.

The prototype, targeting people aged 25-50 from the civil society, includes: (i) a function to learn about species locally available, (ii) index cards to centralize up-to-date scientific evidence about food safety, nutrition, sustainability, regional and seasonal availability, and taste properties of these species, and (iii) videos promoting responsible fishing, hunting and picking, creative food preparation methods with culinary chefs as well as narratives from fisher persons and elders collected as part of MSL.

We now need to develop the content and program an interface to house a functional version of the prototype within the MSL website. We will conduct an exhaustive literature review and mobilize experts’ knowledge (e.g. nutrition, toxicology, public health, maritime anthropology and museology, oceanography, fish biology, culinary chefs and local knowledge holders.)

This knowledge mobilization tool is well aligned with MEOPAR’s strategic plan as it aims to improve Ocean Science literacy through an informed consumption of St. Lawrence resources in Quebec, and aims to ultimately foster food sovereignty and security, coastal communities’ health, and marine food system sustainability.