Jon Aars

These proceedings provide an overview of the ongoing research and management activities on polar bears in the circumpolar arctic. Together with the previous 13 proceedings, they provide an historic record of international efforts in protecting, studying and managing polar bears. With recent documentation of how warmer arctic climate might affect the sea ice habitat of polar bears, the predictions of even warmer climate in the next decades, and documentation of effects on polar bears subpopulations, an evaluation of the red list status of polar bear subpopulations was followed by an increased conservation designation of vulnerable. In the complexity of possible interactions between climate change, local harvest, and in some areas high levels of pollutants, an increased level of international cooperation was advocated.