©Govt of Quebec

The caribou of Quebec are at breaking point. The province, home to 15% of Canada’s population of woodland caribou, has seen numbers crash to about half of what they were a decade ago. For years, local First Nations people, researchers and environmental groups have criticised the provincial government’s lack of action on protecting caribou, an animal considered a keystone species by Indigenous peoples. A recently announced agreement between the federal and Quebec governments has raised hopes that the province will finally be compelled to release a protection strategy. The federal government has committed C$25m to the province for caribou over five years, with an additional C$15m for the First Nations communities on whose land the herds live. But the continued reliance on maternity pens remains a concern. …The Quebec government does not have a caribou strategy, says Alain Branchaud, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, even though the creation of one was announced a decade ago.