Recovery Planning for an Arctic Icon: A Case Study in Collaboration

In 2017, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced completion of the Polar Bear Conservation Management Plan. The Plan was the culmination of 5 years of effort by 38 individuals from 16 agencies.  Like any worthwhile... [ view full abstract ]

In 2017, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced completion of the Polar Bear Conservation Management Plan. The Plan was the culmination of 5 years of effort by 38 individuals from 16 agencies.  Like any worthwhile journey, the Plan-writing process included a few false starts, some missed opportunities, and several tense moments but it ultimately resulted in a well-reasoned document that traversed new ground and, more importantly, effectively reflected the input and aspirations of a diverse group of stakeholders. 

In an era of polarized stakeholders and precedent-setting environmental challenges, the polar bear Recovery Team’s journey offers a timely road map for collaborative wildlife conservation.  Three specific areas addressed in the case study include (1) tips for engaging antagonistic stakeholders; (2) the challenge of navigating sensitive cultural issues (in our case, subsistence harvest of a declining species); and (3) recovery planning for an Arctic species in the face of rapidly disappearing sea ice (an assignment complicated by the dearth of information or precedent, and the global scale and politically-sensitive nature of the threat).     

The success of the polar bear conservation planning effort exemplifies several themes in modern wildlife conservation. Conservation needs to be collaborative, because the response to broad threats requires the cooperation of management partners across the landscape. Collaboration requires understanding and honoring the aspirations of the individual partners. External threats, like climate change, force a two-pronged conservation approach to motivate global action to mitigate the primary threat while taking local action to manage the species in the interim.