CITES votes to reject classing polar bears as endangered

A proposal to outlaw international trade in polar bear parts went down to defeat March 18 at a meeting of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species in Doha, Qatar.

Out of 121 countries that voted on a U.S. proposal to classify polar bears as endangered, banning international trade in their parts, only 48 voted in favour, falling far short of the two-thirds majority needed for it to pass.

Sixty-two countries voted for the status quo, while 11 abstained.

Listing the polar bears under CITES Appendix I would have made it illegal to transport their parts across international borders, effectively killing Canada’s polar bear sport hunting industry.

Canada is the only country that allows polar bear sport hunting.

Ernie Cooper, WWF Canada’s expert on the wildlife trade, said “the odds of it (a CITES polar bear listing) coming back are all but impossible.”

Speaking after the March 18 session of the CITES annual conference in Doha, Qatar, Cooper said he felt the parties who had spoken in favour of the listing were “not well informed on the issues.”

Cooper said the U.S. had coached its proposal as a “precautionary” measure.

WWF Canada was among the conservation NGOs that opposed the listing, arguing the impact of hunting and trade was comparatively minor and that outlawing it would do nothing to address the more serious threat to the species: climate change.

Cooper said some of the parties critical of the listing spoke favourably of Canada’s management of polar bear populations.

Amid vocal opposition, the Government of Nunavut reduced the harvest quota for its most controversial polar bear population earlier this month.

The Baffin Bay polar bear quota is being reduced by 10 per year for four years, until it decreases from 105 to 65.

And the hunting quota for polar bears in western Hudson Bay went from 56 to eight.

The Government of Nunavut was represented at the conference by Simon Awa, the deputy minister of the environment and Drikus Gissing, the director of wildlife.

“Their job was to educate all the countries that were there on our management practices and how we manage polar bears in Nunavut,” Nunavut Environment Minister Dan Shewchuk said.

“And I think that [Nunavut’s population management regime] did have something [to do with it].”

Awa said explaining Nunavut’s management system did a lot to change the minds of international delegates. Awa said the Mexican representative he spoke to said he would no longer support the U.S. position.

“Yes, there are some populations that we are concerned about and we are doing something about it, such as western Hudson bay and Baffin bay,” Awa said.

Canada has two-thirds of the world’s population of polar bears. Of those, the majority are in Nunavut.

Polar bear sport hunts have been declining for years due to import bans of polar bear parts in the U.S. and Mexico, once the main markets for polar bear sport hunting.

The Department of Environment estimates hat some 20-30 tags will be sold this season to sport hunters, mostly Canadians and Europeans.

He said there were good interventions by Canada, Norway, Greenland and NTI in opposition to the listing.

Cooper pointed out that outlawing polar bear sport hunts would do nothing to reduce the number of bears killed in Canada each year because aboriginal hunters will simply use the tags for subsistence purposes anyway.

The U.S. was the only country with an Arctic territorial presence to argue in favour of the trade ban.

Shewchuk told the legislative assembly his department had lobbied CITES “tirelessly” to reject the proposal.

“Had this proposal been accepted, it would have had serious negative consequences for Nunavummiut, and in particular harvesters,” he said.