Arctic states need to speed up polar bear conservation: WWF

The five circumpolar states with polar bears said in 2015 that they would do more to protect their polar bear populations. Now, two years year, the World Wildlife Fund has delivered a 52-page report that scores the efforts made by Canada, the U.S., Russia, Norway and Denmark-Greenland. (IMAGE COURTESY OF THE WWF)

Two years into the 10-year, five-nation Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, action is slow, says the World Wildlife Fund in a “scorecard” that measures progress on carrying out promises made in 2015.

Overall, the WWF says the five states—Canada, the United States, Russia, Denmark-Greenland and Norway—are way behind their agreed schedule for implementing the Circumpolar Action Plan: Conservation Strategy for the Polar Bear, which flowed from their 2015 agreement.

“As a nation, we’ve spent the past few years doing the necessary groundwork, but now it’s time for Canada to step up and tackle some of the more complex and expensive problems,” said Megan Leslie, president and CEO of WWF-Canada, in a release on the 52-page document released earlier this week.

Canada, home to two-thirds of the world’s population of roughly 30,000 polar bears, has done a good job surveying subpopulations, making sure the polar bear trade is legally regulated, and incorporating traditional knowledge into polar bear management, the WWF said.

But Canada must do more to improve its oil spill response capabilities and to protect polar bear habitat.

“Arctic communities are not prepared to deal with such a spill, and when it happens the contaminants will have long-term impacts on important habitat for wildlife, including polar bears, whales and fish,” said Paul Crowley, vice president of Arctic conservation for WWF-Canada, in a scorecard that included nation-by-nation evaluations in areas such as management of human and polar bear conflict.

Back in 1973, when the five Arctic states first agreed to manage polar bears, the largest threat to polar bears was over-hunting, so their first agreement was mainly directed towards harvesting-management programs and protected areas.

Since then, however, the nature of threats facing polar bears has changed, and the biggest threats are now the result of human activities that are changing the climate.

This is where there’s still a lot of work to be done, the WWF said.

The five Arctic nations still need to raise more awareness about the link between the changing Arctic environment and polar bear conservation.

And they should lobby the global community more to address greenhouse gas emissions, which threaten the polar bears’ habitat.

Among other things, Canada needs to put more money into polar bear research.

“While the Canadian government has made impressive progress in polar-bear science and policy, there is only so much that can be done on such a limited budget. As sea ice continues to decline, frequent and timely monitoring of polar-bear subpopulations across Canada will be necessary to ensure co-management boards can make informed decisions. And right now, Arctic researchers can’t keep up,” Crowley said.

Overall, the WWF report finds that Norway leads the states in their response to the 2015 action plan, followed by the U.S., Canada, Russia and Greenland.