Polar panic eco-hysteria

I received an email from the North Pole at Christmas.  It wasn't from Santa, but a fellow complaining that he wouldn't be able to hunt polar bears anymore because of all the concern about global warming.

Well you may think, fancy anybody hunting polar bears.

Aren't they already on the verge of extinction?

In the early 1970s the five artic nations (Canada, United States, Greenland/ Denmark, Norway and Russia) agreed to restrict hunting and as a consequence polar bear numbers have shot from about 5,000 to 25,000.

I know it's not what you normally hear on the nightly news.

Indeed, at Christmas there was much misleading reporting suggesting that polar bear numbers are on the decline.

Interestingly, most populations are still hunted, but under strict quota systems.

In Canada the Inuit (Eskimos) increasingly sell part of their quota to US big game hunters.

But if the worldwide campaign to have polar bears listed as a threatened species in the US is successful, there will be no more hunting, in part because it will become illegal to take the the skins and heads back to States.

My North Pole emailer explained that if the listing goes ahead this will mean a loss of $3 to $4 million dollars to the Nunavut economy, most of which goes directly to Inuit hunters, guides and their families.

He said that these guides are some of the poorest people in the north and are still reeling from the European Union restrictions on seal skins.

Yet, he said, this is another entirely sustainable harvest that didn't require extra protections.

So why all the eco-hysteria associated with polar bears?

Well, according to Kassie Siegel, a lawyer from the US Centre for Biological Diversity, people care about polar bears -- they're iconic.

They can be used to sell the global warming message.

By focusing on polar bears, her group, along with Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council, hope to force the US Government to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions as well as stop the bear hunt.

Judging by the one-eyed reporting in Australia over Christmas they may well succeed.

There is nothing like a groundswell of public support to force change.

And the strength of the environmental lobby in a world of fast global communications makes it increasingly difficult for natural resource users -- be they Australian farmers, New Zealand foresters or Inuit hunters -- to retain access to the resources they have traditionally used.

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