International meeting rejects ban on polar bear trade

Negotiators at an international convention aimed at updating the world's primary wildlife conservation treaty have rejected an American-led effort to ban trade in polar bear skin and other body parts.

Delegates to the 175-member Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species meeting in Qatar were swayed by arguments that the prohibition would hurt the economies of native Arctic cultures and that the hunting of polar bears is not significantly hurting the species.

Some scientists believe that the polar bear's habitat could shrink by two-thirds in the next several decades as global warming continues. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration estimated last spring that 30 percent of summer Arctic ice could be gone by mid-century.

There are about 20,000-25,000 polar bears left in the wild.

Data made available by CITES shows that the international trade in polar bear body parts has increased in the last two decades and that, between 1992-2006, more than 31,000 live polar bears, carcasses or body parts were exported to CITES member nations.

Canada, Norway and Greenland were the leading opponents to the American proposal, which would also have prohibited trade in the teeth and claws of the planet's largest terrestrial mammal.

Canada, which is home to about two-thirds of Earth's polar bears, exports the most polar bear skins of any nation in the world.

According to information submitted by that nation to CITES delegates, all of the skins it exports are obtained through subsistence hunting activities.