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ENVIRONMENT REPORTER

Environment Minister Jim Prentice is expected to sign a deal today indicating that Canada, Greenland and Nunavut have reached an agreement on managing and conserving their shared polar bear populations.

The signing, which is to take place in Greenland, could help ensure the survival of several hundred polar bears that wander freely across the international maritime boundary between Greenland and Canada in the Eastern Arctic.

Peter Ewins, director of species conservation with World Wildlife Fund Canada, said the memorandum negotiated by the three jurisdictions is expected to be patterned after similar pacts arranged by Canada, Russia and the United States covering polar bear groups whose habitat straddles international borders around Alaska in the Western Arctic.

He called the deal with Greenland "long overdue," and said it could help conserve stocks of the large mammals by allowing the establishment of hunting quotas that take into account harvests in both countries, among other measures.

Polar bears cross between Canada and Greenland around Baffin Bay, Davis Strait, and Ellesmere Island.

An estimated 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears live in the Arctic, and the world's largest population resides in Canada, with about 60 per cent of the total.

The United States considers the bears a threatened species, although Canada has provided them its lowest level of protection - the designation of "special concern," which requires no practical actions to safeguard populations.

Inuit groups in Nunavut that depend on income from polar bear trophy hunting contend that populations are healthy. But Mr. Ewins said the species faces an uncertain future because of the rapid melting of sea ice, their primary habitat, due to climate change. He said Canada and Greenland will have to take global warming into account in their joint conservation plans if the species is to have a hope of long-term survival.