In their first meeting since 1981, nations that are home to polar bears met on March 17-19 in Tromsoe, Norway, to write an action plan to ensure the mammals’ future. The five nations — Norway, Russia, Canada, the United States, and Denmark/Greenland — agreed in 1973 to protect polar bears.  

In 1973, the greatest known danger to the bear was hunters. According to Erik Solheim, Norwegian Minister of the Environment and International Development, the principal threat to the polar bear today is climate change. “We have to act to protect the ecosystem of which polar bears are a part. The global warming has to be stopped if we are to succeed,” he told participants at the opening of the current meeting. He added that the five governments should send a clear message to the international climate change summit in Copenhagen in December, when more than 180 countries take up the Kyoto treaty, which would reduce greenhouse gases.

“No sea ice equates no polar bears. It’s that simple,” Geoff York, a polar bear expert with the WWF (World Wildlife Fund), told reporters in Norway. It is estimated that two-thirds of the 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears in the Arctic could disappear by the middle of this century if warming continues. Researchers say that polar bears weigh 15 percent less than those of 20 years ago.

Polar Bears International, a conservation group invited to the five-nation meeting, has enlisted the help of zookeepers to study ways of helping bears survive in their changing environment. Working with coastal communities is near the top of the list because encounters with humans increase as the bears search for food. The group has also discussed rescuing orphaned cubs and feeding malnourished bears.