STOP POLAR BEAR TRADE AND TROPHY IMPORTS

To the European Commissioner for the Environment,

to the Minister for the Environment of the Kingdom of Denmark,

to the Minister for the Environment of the Kingdom of Norway:

The polar bear is running out of time, and international policy is failing to keep pace.

Dependent entirely on sea ice to hunt and survive, the polar bear faces accelerating habitat loss as the Arctic warms. But alongside the climate crisis sits a second, entirely avoidable threat: the ongoing international commercial trade in polar bear skins and parts.

Every year, polar bear skins, skulls, claws and other body parts enter international trade legally. This is possible because the polar bear remains on Appendix II of CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which regulates but does not prohibit commercial trade. Canada is the world’s only exporter of polar bear skins into international commercial trade. Both commercial buyers and trophy hunters target the same animals: the largest, strongest males, whose size and genetic fitness make them best placed to survive a warming Arctic. Their removal compounds the damage climate change is already doing.

Canada was trusted to manage this responsibly. It has not.

In 2013, when the last proposal to uplist the polar bear to Appendix I was defeated at CITES CoP16, the science supported uplisting. The proposal failed for political reasons, not scientific ones. Canada lobbied aggressively against the measure, making formal assurances to CITES in return: that harvests were strictly controlled, that management decisions were monitored for sustainability, and critically, that Canada would restrict hunting from any subpopulation classified as threatened. Since then, at least 1,760 polar bear skins have been exported from Canada into international trade. In 2019, Nunavut adopted a management plan that broke every one of those assurances — increasing quotas for threatened subpopulations, introducing a “management for decline” strategy for four subpopulations, and shifting the harvest ratio to 1:1, a 50% increase in the killing of reproductive females.

The Canadian government’s own subsidy program continues to pay hunters advance payments per hide regardless of whether skins sell, insulating hunting levels from market forces entirely. Hundreds of unsold skins are regularly returned north having failed to find buyers, while hunters keep their payments. This is not a functioning market. It is a subsidised cull.

The IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group warned in December 2023 that Nunavut’s harvest management practices are inconsistent with the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, and that if current trends continue, polar bears could meet the criteria for an Appendix I uplisting under CITES. Norway’s own independent scientific committee (VKM) concluded it was unable to determine that international trade in Canadian polar bears is non-detrimental to the survival of the species.

The polar bear is classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN, with a global population of only 25,000. The situation continues to worsen. We cannot wait for it to deteriorate further before acting.

We urgently call on you to submit a formal proposal to uplist the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) to Appendix I of CITES at CoP21 in 2028, prohibiting international commercial trade in polar bear specimens including skins, skulls, claws, and other body parts. An Appendix I listing does not affect Indigenous peoples’ right to hunt. It ends the international commercial market and triggers immediate import restrictions on polar bear trophies across EU member states, closing the markets that sustain demand.

In October 2025, the European Parliament adopted a resolution (P10_TA(2025)0255) calling on EU Member States to advocate for stronger protection of the polar bear and to tackle the threats posed by exploitation for trade in trophies and hides. That resolution was a signal of intent. Submitting the uplisting proposal at CoP21 is how that intent becomes action.