Resource+management5

= **Resource Management: The Case of the Polar Bear** =




 * " **"//The polar bear is victim of a peculiar, and particularly repulsive, expression of man's egotism. Wealthy men have taken to hunting bears in Alaska from airplanes... This kind of hunt is about as sporting as machine-gunning a cow. Its only purpose is to obtain the bear's fur as a trophy for the floor or wall of someone's den//." ~ The New York Times, 1965

** Resource Management Defined **
In terms of natural resources such as the polar bear, resource management is the management of natural resources to bring into being development that is //economically viable, socially beneficial, and ecologically sustainable//. Such resources include land, water, soil, plants and animals, with a particular focus on how management affects the quality of life sustainable development, a scientific principle that forms a basis for sustainable global land management and environmental governance to conserve and preserve natural resources for both present and future generations. Natural resource management is congruent with the concept of a scientific principal that forms for sustainable global land management and environmental governance to conserve and preserve natural resources. It specifically focuses on a scientific and technical understanding of resources and ecology and the life-supporting capacity of those resources. [**Source**: []]

** The way the Inuit view the polar bear **


To the traditional thinking (not influenced by white modernity) Inuit people the polar bear ("Nanook" - the Wandering One) is much more than just an animal. It is viewed as majestic, spiritual, iconic, mystical and human-like in the way it can stand upright. The bear is a source of food, clothing, spiritual pendants, and tools. Before killing a bear, these people would apologize to it and pray in thanks. They ate the heart of the bear first in an attempt to gain its cunning and courage. They also wore the bear's tooth as an amulet that was thought to absorb the magic power of the animal. [Source: http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/polarbearfever/history.html]

The Inuit do not operate under a community resource regime wherein natural resources are shared amongst communities and families. Their understanding and use of such resources comes from decades of knowledge and wisdom that comes only from living off the land, at one with the land, being a part of nature. The use of the polar bear is multi-faceted not money focused. It is revered and thanked. All of it is used - none is wasted. And so goes this way of thinking for all things in the north. The Inuit have always operated this way until in recent time when they, much like many indigenous peoples, were exposed to white ways of looking at the world and viewing nature and resources. They were introduced to capitalism and with that came the tools of the trade - technology and greed.

The Inuit people have been introduced to foreign hunters who will pay them well for hunting and taking polar bears. Initially, the Inuit were not keen on supplying thrill seeking foreign hunters with polar bears but soon the sport became a booming business and still is - the money generated is pumped into the local economy despite warnings that the bear populations were suffering from overkill AND global warming factors. Today, delegations from the Inuit communities speak eloquently about their right to hunt, it's significance in their culture, and the financial hardship that listing the polar bear as endangered could bring to their communities. They claim that they are seeing lots more polar bears, and even some scientists agree that not all populations are in decline.

So we have a mix in perception here, a clash in understandings about many complex issues and a pressure to stay economically afloat. Again, money is the mainstream though as it is what keeps the trophy hunt well and alive. Take that money stream away and Inuit communities would lose millions.

**The way the non-Inuit view the polar bear**


To non-natives, the polar bear meant and still means something much different than traditional thinking - a way to make money. Russian traders and animal dealers still market furs and live polar bears for zoos and circuses. And for many decades hunting polar bears in the Arctic has been a popular extreme sport for the wealthy, for trophy hunters, for the bear gall bladder trade, for bear paw ash trays and black market bear teeth, for fashion and eco-tourism. Today, hunters from around the globe can make their way to the northern reaches of polar bear territory - well equipped with the highest of technology from precision rifles and snow machines to night scopes and illegal bear traps and of course, Inuit guides, heated tents and the best of outdoor gear and top cuisine. There they can pretty much land any polar they want in less than 14 days, make about $35,000 and legally bring their prize back to their county with them. Although the USA, Greenland and Russia have banned both polar bear trophy hunting and quotas, Canada has surely not done the same. Norway, has simply halted the stalking of polar bears and Canada has placed a bag limit for hunted polar bears that even the Inuit must adhere to. Despite the widely-reported threat to polar bears from climate change AND over hunting in several areas, the sport hunt is still allowed. Some guide-outfitting companies say that they do not waste any bear carcass, that all the meat is given to the Inuit while the hunter takes the head and carcass home. The problem is that noon really knows the population of the sub populations of polar bears to even set a proper bag limit on top of the number of bears that are killed for subsistence means by the Inuit themselves. In fact, many outfitting companies claim that the bears are respected by the hunters, that the quota of bears shot would have been killed anyways by the Inuit for food or by natural factors anyways. So for the fun of the clearly unfair hunt, the high quotas set, and the money to be made out of dead and alive polar bears, this creature is losing out.[Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1163517/Hunters-home-hides-trophies-24-000--8216-shoot-polar-bear-8217-holidays.html and []

The pressures on the bears from the outside, excluding the far reaching and complex consequences of global warming, come from foreign trophy hunting, the fur trade, bear gall bladders and other bear parts and well, we all know that eco-tourism, especially in Churchill, is also huge business.

Add to all of that the pressures of global oil seeking companies who want to develop the Arctic. Proposed oil extraction operations would severely negatively affect not only bear habitat but also the normal functioning of sea ice movement. The oil companies currently operating in the Arctic have already had to suspend their operations for up to a day or more in order to deal with problem bears. Time not in operation means money lost so there is a clear conflict between bears and development. As more companies migrate into Arctic territory and set up camp, there will certainly be more bear-human encounters. Situations such as this usually do not bode well for the bear, even though the bear has sole right to the area. Scientists worry that vital species are at risk from oil exploration and production, and not just from spills—they also worry that habitat destruction, bottom disturbance, noise, and an increased human presence will all take their toll - the polar bear would have no chance against nations hellbent on satisfying their insatiable need for oil. [Source: http://www.heatingoil.com/blog/offshore-drilling-in-alaskas-waters-opposed-by-scientists-environmentalists-fishermen/]

Non-native interest in the polar bear operates under a state resource regime - controlled by 5 countries. The bear knows no boundaries in the northern hemisphere and so is found in all five countries (Canada, Norway, Russia, Denmark, USA) therefore is managed as an International resource. This makes management complicated. Each country manages the bear differently and not always to the benefit of the bear population. In 1973, measures were put in place in 1973 at the International Circumpolar Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears to curb the obvious decline in the overall population of polar bears from over harvesting. All but Canada halted the trophy hunting and setting of quotas for polar bears. That said,

Therefore, to non-native people with vested interests the polar bear is seen as both a money maker and a nuisance and a danger. It is heralded as something that if granted endangered status, would threaten the very fabric of oil exploration and development and halt the trophy hunt thereby stopping two very capitalistic ventures. No wonder this bear has so much attention centered on it!

**The Tug-O-War**
Tension exists in the tug-o-war between resource regimes of indigenous knowledge versus state regulation when to comes to management of the polar bear. This is the key issue alongside the complex state of the environment with regards to global warming. The polar bear has no say with either of the players. The Indigenous operate under a community regime, a pseudo-ecologic world view, based on wisdom passed down whilst the rest of the world wants to operate under a state regulation regime - a capitalistic minded world view based on technology and science. Both sides operate so differently but then again both are fighting to not have the bear listed as endangered. The only side fighting to have the bear listed as endangered are environmentalists and scientists who can actually measure, to some accurate degree, the state of the sub-populations of the polar bears and the effects of global warming on their survival. Though international agreement has been made to properly manage the bears, each country still manages in a way that does not help the population of polar bears stabilize and no one country is doing enough to halt their contribution to global warming either. Some argue, and this includes Indigenous thought, that saving the polar bears is not the issue, but that global warming is the issue therefore why list the bear as endangered. Behind those voices is the fear that money generated from oil development and trophy hunting will be halted if the bear is deemed as endangered. The Inuit believe that polar bear populations are on the rise but they do not have access to the science that can see that bears are decreasing in many areas. They do not see, cannot see the detrimental effects that global warming is having on the polar bear. It seems that people are trying to keep the money coming by saying that we should be stopping global warming first before we save a bunch of polar bears. Global warming however, is not putting a choke chain on resource extraction companies, is not threatening their short term money gain that successfully saving polar bears would bring to them. And of course mainstream modernistic thinking suggests that maintaining a flexible and adaptable harvest management agreement among the governments of Ontario, Quebec, and Nunavut and their respective Aboriginal communities is important to the long-term survival of this sub-population.... I ask, is it really??? And doesn't that depend largely on the definitions of "flexible" and "adaptable harvest management"? [**Source**: []]

**Tragedy of the Commons Re-visited**
The tragedy here lies on many fronts. We are fighting over a living natural resource which unfortunately fetches a higher price more dead than alive. We are dealing with two major world views that oppose each other and we are dealing with the issues of trust and control. Indigenous people want and deserve their traditional way of life in a healthy ecosystem but markets want control of not just the polar bear but also the Arctic at large. The grey area is that many indigenous groups are capitalizing on capitalization itself by becoming dependent on the big market in polar bear trophy hunting in Canada. But this animal, this "commons" is of huge global ecological importance but is being threatened by many fronts at the expense of the resource itself, at the expense of the food web, and at the expense of the traditional Indigenous way of life and for all those who wish to keep this resource for future generations. Ecologically this animal is not being adequately managed because of lack of data and of lack of agreement and protection. Socially this animal is being used and abused along with the true Indigenous way of life. Economically this animal is being destroyed if not from over harvesting but also by resource extraction practices and the effects of global warming that they contribute to.