http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/07/world/polar-bear-protections/index.html?hpt=hp_t3(CNN) -- A U.S. plan to give new protection to polar bears was voted down Thursday at an international conference on endangered species.
The American delegation
at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Fauna and Flora (CITES) meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, had sought a ban
on the international trade of polar bear parts. The ban was opposed by
Canada, home to the world's largest population of polar bears, as well
as Norway and Greenland. It failed with 38 votes for, 42 against and 46
abstentions.
"Unfortunately, politics
seem to have overtaken science," Dan Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and the head of the U.S. delegation to the Bangkok
conference, said in a statement.
Polar bears have been
listed under Appendix II of the CITES accords, which applies to species
that are not currently threatened with extinction but may face it
without restrictions on the trade of their body parts. The U.S. had
proposed moving polar bears to Appendix I, which applies to species
threatened with extinction and effectively bans trade in their body
parts.
The U.S. says that
shrinking Arctic ice habitat, a product of a warming climate, puts polar
bear populations in a precarious position. Two-thirds of the world's
polar bear populations could face local extinctions within 45 years due
to habitat loss, the National Resources Defense Council says.
...
Canada, which has 16,000
of the 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears left in the wild, says polar bear
populations are not threatened and the animal does not meet the Appendix
1 criteria.
"The polar bear does not
have a small wild population, it does not have a restricted area of
distribution and no marked decline has been observed," Environment
Canada says on its website. Canada also says polar bear parts coming
from the country are taken in subsistence hunts, not by commercial
operations.
"Harvest quotas are
based on principles of conservation and Aboriginal subsistence, and are
not market driven; an Appendix I listing would have no conservation
benefit," the website says.
But the U.S. argued that
parts from polar bears are traded among 70 countries and that trade
encourages kills that, coupled with the habitat loss, put stress on
populations that will cause them to shrink.
About 800 polar bears
are killed by subsistence hunters each year, the U.S. says. Hides can
sell for $2,000 to as much as $12,000, the FWS says.
"As polar bear hide
prices have skyrocketed, more bears are being offered at auction, and
hunting levels have increased," Ashe said in the statement.
"Prices for polar bear
pelts have doubled over the last few years, and the signs are that trade
is increasing. All the evidence says that it is simply unsustainable so
it is foolish and negligible of us to allow it to continue when polar
bear numbers are diminishing," Mansbridge said.
Do our governments act according to the best interests of the people and land, or do government officials concern themselves more with their own interests, opinions and politics? How can we say that a country votes for some outcome or another when the citizens of that country did not, in fact, vote?
Elected and non-elected representatives of a country are still human beings - and human beings, as is evidenced daily - are a greedy and spiteful lot. Seldom will there be a people's representative that acts solely in the best interests of the people and not in their own best interests. It is far too easy to buy votes and persuade representatives to support whatever proposal offers the best incentive.
Far too often votes are cast in favour of profit (for the voters and their buddies) over protection and sustainability of life. The very fact that no, or very little action is taken to support the animals and plants being destroyed and displaced by our activities shows that those who are in position to effect changes are choosing not to do so. The fact that we are still pumping massive amounts of toxins into our environment goes to show that there is no real interest in protecting life from the government or from the businesses who claim to be improving our communities.
Just consider how many preventable accidents take place in factories around the world - the only reason that no action was taken to prevent those accidents is that people are greedy and don't want to spend money on anything or anyone but themselves. A recent example is the Fukushima nuclear disaster after the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan about 2 years ago. The nuclear disaster was a direct result of cutting corners with the safety of the power plant to save money.
The real problem is not that governments don't care - it's that nobody cares.
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