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Thursday, May 15, 2008

Polar Bear Called "Threatened," Federal Protection to Follow

Yesterday, after a period of long delay, the Department of the Interior announced it would list the polar bear as a "threatened" species under the Endangered Species Act. Designating a species as threatened is not as serious as calling it endangered, but it still affords the species federal protections and special considerations.

The debate over whether to list the polar bear has been a hot button issue, because the main threat to the species is global climate change which is affecting the ice cover and sea conditions the bear needs to subsist.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said that the decision to list the polar bear under the Act does not permit the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. "Protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act is a major step forward, but the Bush Administration has proposed using loopholes in the law to allow the greatest threat to the polar bear — global warming pollution — to continue unabated," said Andrew Wetzler, Director of the Endangered Species Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Although Kempthorne is passing the buck on climate change, that doesn't mean the decision is a hollow one. Climate change is not the only threat to the polar bear. Man's physical intrusion into polar bear habitats can add unnecessary peril to a sensitive situation; industrial activities can disrupt any species' lifestyle.

In fact, the reason the Interior Department delayed the decision to deem the polar bear as threatened was because it needed to hurriedly approve permits for oil and gas extraction in parts of Alaska where the polar bear lives. The department was legally required to make its decision in January but stalled while its division in charge of minerals extraction doled out permits to big polluters. Environmentalists sued, and a court ordered Interior to make the decision by May 15.

Because of the listing decision, future actions that benefit special interests at the polar bear's expense will not be so easy. According to NRDC, "Listing the polar bear guarantees federal agencies will be obligated to ensure that any action they authorize, fund, or carry out will not jeopardize the polar bears' continued existence or adversely modify their critical habitat, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be required to prepare a recovery plan for the polar bear, specifying measures necessary for its protection." That's good news for the polar bear.