U.S. polar bear decisions frustrate Nunavut Inuit group
Last Updated: Monday, May 11, 2009 | 11:10 AM CT
CBC News
The latest decision by the U.S. government to keep limiting the protection of polar bears has the head of a Nunavut Inuit association frustrated with that country's overall handling of the iconic Arctic species.
On Friday, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the administration of President Barack Obama would uphold a regulation from the era of former president George W. Bush that limits protection of polar bears from the effects of global warming.
That regulation has angered environmental activist groups, as they cannot use the polar bear's listing as a threatened species to fight climate change.
But none of the U.S. rules on polar bears make sense, said Jose Kusugak, president of the Kivalliq Inuit Association in central Nunavut.
"There are such things as stupid laws that affect the people in a negative way when there ought not to be those kinds of laws," Kusugak told CBC News after Friday's announcement.
'Very, very frustrating'
The U.S. government's listing of the polar bear as a threatened species has closed off American sport hunters from coming north to hunt polar bears — a once-lucrative business for Inuit hunting guides in Nunavut.
The polar bear is part of Inuit culture, used as a food source as well as for its pelts.
Polar bear populations are managed in Nunavut, with regional quotas set on how many bears can be hunted each year.
Kusugak said the U.S. should not use polar bears as a tool in the climate change debate, but instead address climate change as a whole issue.
"They don't look at the consequences of what's happening with the people that are there, hunting these species," he said.
"So it does become very, very frustrating."
The bear was declared threatened in May 2008 under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, when the government said global warming is causing a severe decline in Arctic sea ice.
But the Bush administration rules, imposed in December, limit that protection, saying no action outside the Arctic region could be considered a threat to the bear under the law.
Act not right mechanism: U.S. assistant secretary
Rescinding the Bush rule would not make any difference, as other measures are being taken to address climate change, said Tom Strickland, the U.S. assistant secretary for the interior.
"We do not believe that the Endangered Species Act should, or is the right mechanism to be used to address the broader issues of CO2 and climate change," he told CBC News.
But groups like the Center for Biological Diversity, which has long lobbied for polar bears to be listed under the Endangered Species Act, say it doesn't make sense for the government to say polar bears are in trouble but not take the action needed to slow down the shrinking of Arctic sea ice.
The Center for Biological Diversity is moving ahead with its lawsuit against the U.S. government, challenging the regulation.
"This is not going to be an easy road," said Bill Snape, the organization's senior legal counsel.
"There are very entrenched powers, particularly in the oil and gas industry, that do not want to change and that still want to have our country addicted to fossil fuels."
