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Activists push for international ban on legal trade in polar bear items
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/01/polar-bear-legal-trade-ban
A polar bear on pack ice in Svalbard archipelago, Norway. Photograph: Ralph Lee Hopkins
Environmental activists in the United States and Russia have come together to push for unprecedented protection for the polar bear, hoping to stave off the decline of its already dwindling population.
With Arctic Sea ice at record low because of climate change, polar bears have been deprived of a key habitat and feeding ground. Legal trade in polar bears, mainly in the form of trophy skins and furs, remains legal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), leading to the death of hundreds more each year.
Activists from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the Human Society International (HSI) are hoping to change that by supporting government initiatives to upgrade the polar bear's status from appendix two to one within the convention, thus banning all international commercial trade.
