U.S. effort to ban trade of polar bear parts fails

SEATTLE — An unusual coalition between the United States and Russia failed Thursday to win an international ban on commercial trade of polar bear parts.

Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, delegates to the 178-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora voted down a U.S. proposal to elevate the bears’ status and in effect prohibit the lucrative trade in skins, teeth and claws from the animals, which are hunted in Canada.

The U.S. was joined in its campaign by Russia, which has battled widespread poaching of polar bears in recent years. But the effort met with opposition from Canada and Denmark, and was further sidetracked when the European Union attempted a compromise that would have allowed further study before an outright ban.

“The result was very disappointing, not just for us, but obviously for the fate of the world’s polar bears,” Andrew Wetzler, who spoke at the meeting on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council and two other conservation organizations, said in a phone interview.

A total of 38 countries voted in favor of the U.S. proposal, with 42 against it, and 46 abstentions. Some nations did not attend.

“It’s an unfortunate re- sult after an ugly process,” said Brendan Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Countries and organizations that wanted to keep the international trade in polar bear skins going for political reasons had to distort or downplay the science showing polar bears are well on their way to extinction.”

There are about 25,000 polar bears, two-thirds of them in Canada. The U.S., in a report to the convention, said an average of 3,200 items made from polar bears were exported every year from Arctic countries, mainly Canada, representing 400 to 500 polar bears.

The trade has become increasingly valuable, adding to the dangers facing an animal already threatened by climate change. Two pelts sold at an auction in June in Ontario fetched a record $16,500 each. Canadian officials say they set careful quotas to ensure that the animals are hunted in sustainable numbers.

The Inuit population of northern Canada fiercely defends its right to hunt the animals, as it has done for generations.

“For the world to suggest that we’ll save the polar bears and forget the people, that’s a little backwards,” Terry Audla, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which represents about 55,000 Inuit across Canada, told The Times in an interview last year. Audla also spoke at Thursday’s meeting.