Polar bears: still legal prey for tro­phy hun­ters after lates CITES con­fe­rence

The latest CITES con­fe­rence has not been suc­cessful in put­ting a ban on hun­ting polar bears. Seve­ral count­ries inclu­ding Cana­da and Green­land still allow limi­t­ed hun­ting, inclu­ding tro­phy hun­ting for rich for­eign hun­ters. As can be expec­ted, this is met with sub­stan­ti­al cri­ti­cism by envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­sa­ti­ons. During the latest CITES con­fe­rence in Bang­kok, Den­mark was among­st the count­ries that expres­sed worries about a com­ple­te ban on hun­ting. Den­mark is spea­king for Green­land inter­na­tio­nal­ly. Accor­ding to the CITES trea­ty, each EU coun­try has a vote on its own in the con­fe­rence. The­re is, howe­ver, an agree­ment that the EU count­ries agree on their vote or do not vote at all. As a result, important votes for a glo­bal ban on polar bear hun­ting were miss­ing and an agree­ment was con­se­quent­ly not rea­ched.

CITES is the legal­ly bin­ding Con­ven­ti­on on Inter­na­tio­nal Trade in End­an­ge­red Spe­ci­es of Wild Fau­na and Flo­ra.

It is wide­ly accept­ed that cli­ma­te chan­ge is gene­ral­ly the most serious glo­bal thre­at for polar bears, fol­lo­wed by pol­lu­ti­on with envi­ron­men­tal toxins. But regio­nal­ly, pres­su­re from hun­ting can be signi­fi­cant, or at least its con­se­quen­ces for regio­nal popu­la­ti­ons are not unders­tood.

In Spits­ber­gen, whe­re Nor­we­gi­an law is valid, polar bears are and remain ful­ly pro­tec­ted.

Source: Spie­gel Online

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