Polar bears have been the subject of major media attention this year, mainly due to the long-term threat to their survival posed by climate change. Recently, a more immediate and avoidable threat has come to the fore - ironically, one that comes from the very people who rely on polar bears the most. It relates to a decision that threatens not only polar bears, but also Canada's Arctic sovereignty aspirations, and our reputation as strong stewards of the Arctic.
Last week, the governments of Nunavut and Greenland independently announced their annual hunting quotas for Baffin Bay polar bears - a subpopulation of bears shared between the two territories. The two governments have approved another year of overhunting: a quota of 105 bears for Nunavut and 68 for western Greenland, totalling 173 animals - a staggering 12 per cent of the estimated current population of 1,500 animals. This is two to three times the generally accepted maximum sustainable level of hunting from robust populations.
The governments arrived at their respective decisions despite the fact that Nunavut's own scientific analyses have concluded that hunting in the past decade has already driven the Baffin Bay subpopulation down by 30 per cent, from about 2,200 animals. WWF recommended at a Nunavut Public Hearing this spring that the population be allowed to recover before any further hunting be allowed.
The decisions to continue the current level of harvesting is a shocking symptom of an ineffective overall plan to look after these magnificent and increasingly threatened animals. In ignoring the advice and evidence from its own scientists, Nunavut's government has succumbed to pressure from hunters.
At the core of the conflict is a serious distrust of the science behind the population estimates. Canada's co-management system is a good model, but it requires trust and full integration of both scientific and traditional ecological knowledge sources to regularly update information. Clearly, local decision-makers must come together to make informed and pro-active conservation decisions in the face of accelerating climate change.
While some argue that this is a local issue, Canada and Nunavut cannot escape their global responsibility. Canada is home to approximately two-thirds of the world's wild polar bears, in 13 separate subpopulations, mostly in Nunavut. At least five of these subpopulations are declining due to climate change, hunting or industrial development. The accelerating loss of sea ice - the bears' fundamental habitat - has recently led both the World Conservation Union and the United States to place this species on their lists of threatened wildlife.
Polar bears were severely overhunted before, during the 1950s and 1960s. This led to the 1973 signing of the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears and Their Habitats by Canada and the four other circumpolar countries with responsibility for managing polar bear populations. Under this agreement, Canada committed to protecting polar bears' ecosystems and to consulting with other parties on the management of migrating bear populations. Thirty-five years later, there is still no range-wide or Canadian plan for effective protection measures - not even with the sea ice in rapid decline due to climate change.
Canada must address the main threats to the bears' survival. Before the recent federal election, environment minister John Baird stated that his government would take every swift, firm action necessary to address the polar bear situation. His replacement, Jim Prentice, must follow through on this commitment by quickly developing a plan to address all the main threats to these fragile Arctic marine ecosystems - climate change, hunting and industrial development.
The most obvious and urgent first step is for the governments of Canada and Nunavut to work together to reverse the quota decision. Next up: negotiations between Nunavut and Greenland to develop a conservation plan for the shared population.
This will help avoid this kind of unnecessary conflict in the future, with the added benefit of strengthening Canada's global leadership in the Arctic.
Gerald Butts is president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada.