2016: Saving the polar bear in Greenland
At INTA Conference in Orlando, we had reception at ICEBAR Orlando and chose to donate a sum of money per guest to our partner WWF to save the polar bear. The money was used to start up a polar bear patrol in the village Ittoqqortoormiit in Greenland. Climate change affects sea ice that melts rapidly and decreases yearly. Polar bears are dependent on sea ice to go hunting and to travel on to and from the den. When sea ice melts earlier and earlier each spring, more and more polar bears become stuck on land and will not reach the hunting ground where the seals are, which leads to starvation. During the past few years, more and more “stranded” polar bears go to villages to look for food, often garbage. This means more and more meetings between polar bears and humans, and therefore the risk that someone will be damaged, and at worst killed (often the polar bear is killed), increases. WWF has been working with the polar bear patrols in Russia, Canada and Alaska and their task is to decrease the number of confrontations between the polar bears and humans.