On this day, the International Day for Biodiversity, we take stock of the sobering statistics recently released in a landmark United Nations report which tells us one million species globally are headed for extinction.

We also take a moment to recognize and celebrate a plan to save one of these species, southern mountain caribou. The Draft Partnership Agreement Between B.C., Canada, West Moberly and Saulteau First Nations is a solid, multilateral, visionary plan that not only will contribute to our global biodiversity commitments, but also help the highly threatened mountain caribou survive into the future. It’s a plan rooted in Indigenous knowledge that represents the hope this species of caribou will not be one of the dismal statistics coming out of a very depressing report. 

The fact that the industrial logging lobby and some politicians in the Peace Region are up in arms over a plan that no longer allows industry to drive species to extinction shows we have a very big problem in B.C. As misinformation spreads like wildfire, it stokes fears that communities will vanish overnight and it’s bringing out the worst in people. Hateful comments have been directed at the West Moberly and Saulteau First Nations for championing the plan to save caribou (which have sustained them for thousands of years and are embedded into their culture), which is entirely unacceptable and must stop.

Rightfully, community members are worried about their jobs, especially in the type of boom-bust economy they and many of us find ourselves in. But don’t blame the caribou, don’t blame First Nations in the area. Job loss in the area is already being experienced due to past government mismanagement of our forests, myopic logging company practices rooted in greed, and climate change impacts through the devastation brought by the pine beetle.

Yet, some politicians and some major logging corporations in the area are exploiting the situation by pinning potential job loss on the caribou protection plan and creating hysteria. This has resulted in an atmosphere that has led to downright wrongful and unfortunate remarks by community members, as we have witnessed at various town hall consultation meetings where this innovative plan has been presented. Industry, in particular, has a role to play here in stepping up to publicly denounce the hateful rhetoric underway that they have, perhaps unwittingly, had a significant role in creating.

And some politicians are cynically exploiting the situation as well, fomenting hate against environmental groups, pinning them to a dartboard to score short-term political points.

It is tragic that saving a species has brought out the worst in people. This is an effort that should (and still could) be celebrated as one of the first stories of how B.C. and Indigenous knowledge systems saved a nearly-extinct species in the age of mass extinction.

Let’s work together to support this caribou conservation plan to protect an essential species, and show the world that B.C. can help lead the way against mass species extinction. Let’s figure out a transition plan for impacted workers. Let’s appeal to our better selves and not cave into the fears and racist tendencies and instead uplift one another, support each other. We have survived as a species by cooperating with each other throughout the thousands and thousands of years, by identifying what connects us, not what divides us.

We owe it to future generations — and in this case also to the caribou.