The Center for Biological Diversity has failed in its bid to use NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) to pressure Canada to list polar bears as a species ‘threatened’ with extinction — wrapping up a story I wrote about twice last year (here and here).
The CBC reported on June 6, 2014 (“NAFTA panel won’t review Canada’s polar bear policy“):
“Vote rejects request for investigation into why Canada won’t designate bears threatened, endangered.”
“An international trade panel has decided not to review whether Canada is enforcing its own environmental legislation to protect its polar bear population.
The Commission for Environmental Co-operation voted 2-1 to reject a request for an investigation into why Canada has chosen not to designate the bears as threatened or endangered. A U.S. environmental group had filed a submission claiming that decision leaves the bears without protection, despite the ongoing loss of their sea-ice habitat and resulting projections of declining numbers.
“We’re obviously disappointed,” said Sarah Uhleman, lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed the complaint.”
Since the argument that polar bears may be threatened with extinction sometime in the future is based not on their current status but on perceived future threats that may occur if future predictions of global warming also occur, I see this as good news indeed.
Previous relevant posts:
Canada under international pressure to list polar bears as threatened, so far holds out January 27, 2013
Canada again under international pressure to list polar bears as threatened November 24, 2013
Did the PBSG game the polar bear listing process? Posted December 26, 2012
Polar bears have not been harmed by sea ice declines in summer – the evidence Posted August 18, 2013
Polar bear status changes in 2013 deconstructed, with a map to the good news March 20, 2014
You must be logged in to post a comment.