Aglukkaq hopes to head off third U.S. up-list bid for polar bear

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq hopes to head off a third attempt by the U.S. government that would up-list the status of the polar bear under CITES. (FILE PHOTO)

Saying it’s time for Canada and Inuit living in Canada to educate the Americans, Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq spent three days last week in West Virginia at a conference aimed at informing them about Canada’s polar bear management systems to head off future conflicts with them over wildlife conservation.

And to help get her point across, she brought a team of Inuit and northern representatives from across the Canadian Arctic with her to the conference, which was held June 10 to June 12 at the small town of Shepherdstown on the West Virginia side of the Potomac River, about 120 km from Washington, D.C.

They included Nunavut Environment Minister Johnny Mike and representatives from Inuit land claim bodies across the Canadian Arctic that are involved in polar bear management.

“It isn’t about picking science or traditional knowledge, it’s about picking both and using both to make good management plans for polar bears, so it’s very important to bring everyone together to talk about what we are doing,” Aglukkaq said in an interview.

Also attending were representatives from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Inupiat from Alaska, various non-governmental organizations. Prior to the Shepherdstown conference, Aglukkaq also held meetings in Washington, where she met Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Senator Angus King of Maine.

One big goal of the meeting was to head off a third U.S. attempt to up-list the status of polar bears under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

“What I want to accomplish is that Canada and the Inuit groups won’t have to go back and fight the issue of up-listing the polar bear at CITES,” Aglukkaq said.

In March 2013, the U.S. delegation at the last CITES meeting in Bangkok, Thailand failed in an attempt to up-list polar bears from the organization’s Appendix II list to Appendix I.

Such a move would have put polar bears in a category reserved for the world’s most immediately endangered species, such as tigers, gorillas, jaguars, rhinos and panda bears, which are threatened with extinction.

And all international trade in all polar bear parts would have been banned.

Aglukkaq said Canada believes a third attempt to up-list the polar bear at CITES is not necessary, but there are indications the U.S. may try again.

That’s why Canada must inform the Americans about the country’s “world-class management system for polar bears.”

And a big part of that is the role played by Inuit in Canada through co-management systems created by land claims agreements.

“They have a huge role to demonstrate how Inuit land claim groups in Canada are working together in managing sub-populations that cross their land claim settlement areas, how Inuit knowledge is being used in management and quota setting and so forth, and also to demonstrate that indigenous people have a huge role to play in passing on traditional knowledge about conservation…,” she said.

Also, Aglukkaq said the Americans and others need to know that Canada is bound by land claims agreements with Inuit that are entrenched within the Constitution.

“It’s an opportunity for Canada to tell the story that we have land claims agreements that allow, through constitutionally entrenched agreements, the right to manage wildlife and so on,” she said.

Another goal of the Shepherdstown conference: to work towards a co-operation agreement with the U.S. for the conservation and management of a sub-population that is shared between the Inuvialuit and the Inupiat of Alaska.

And Aglukkaq repeated that Canada’s polar bear management system does not depend on a binary choice between science and traditional Inuit knowledge, and that one does not dominate the other.

“The management plans that we have in place are solid and bring together science and the traditional knowledge of Inuit,” she said.