Version Dec 5, 2009
Statement of purpose
Following the first international meeting on polar bear conservation held in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1965, the IUCN PBSG was formed to coordinate research and management of polar bears on an international basis. In addition this group took on the role of developing and negotiating the Agreement for the Conservation of Polar Bears. That Agreement was signed in Oslo, Norway in May 1973 and came into effect for a five-year trial period in May, 1976. The Agreement was unanimously confirmed for an indefinite period in January, 1981.
Article VII of the Agreement stipulates that: "The Contracting parties shall conduct national research programmes on polar bears, particularly research relating to the conservation and management of the species. They shall as appropriate coordinate such research with the research carried out by other Parties, consult with other Parties, on management of migrating polar bear populations, and exchange information on research and management programmes, research results, and data on bears taken." To facilitate the coordination and consultation specified in Article VII of the Agreement, the IUCN PBSG has met at 3-5 year intervals since the agreement was confirmed.
The PBSG has no regulatory function. The main purpose of the PBSG is to promote co-operation between jurisdictions that share polar bear populations, facilitate communication on current research and management, and monitor compliance with the agreement. The PBSG is not an open forum for public participation. It is a group consisting of technical experts on polar bears and related issues that meets to discuss scientific and technical matters relevant to the Agreement. At their meeting in March 2009 the Countries party to the International Agreement, asked the PBSG to serve as the scientific advisory body to the Parties. The PBSG members agreed, at their meeting in June and July 2009, that it was appropriate to serve in an advisory capacity to the Parties, but also noted that the PBSG is formally constituted as a technical body under the IUCN and must retain the highest degree of autonomy to ensure that its scientific advice is objective and not influenced by policy matters of the different Parties. The deliberations and resolutions adopted by the PBSG only involve polar bear research and management issues and needs. They are available to the public in the form of published proceedings of the meetings.
Membership
To qualify for membership of the PBSG one must be actively involved in research and/or management of polar bears.
Because of the relationship of the PBSG to the Agreement, membership must reflect not only technical expertise in polar bear research and management, but also equal representation of the nations signatory to the Agreement. For this reason, each signatory nation is entitled to designate three full members. Government-appointed members are proposed by their respective governments and must be considered for membership by the chairman.
In addition to government appointed members, the chairman may, as per IUCN guidelines for membership in Specialists Groups, appoint ten additional members so long as they qualify for membership as defined above. In advance of appointing members the chairman should call for suggestions among the Government-appointed members for suitable candidates to be appointed by the chair. To the largest extent possible the chair-appointed members should represent expertise in polar bears that supplements the expertise held by the group of government-appointed members. Preferably but not necessarily the chair-appointed members should also reflect fair and equitable, but not necessarily equal, representation of nations signatory to the Agreement.
Full government appointed members as well as those appointed by the chair constitute the membership of the PBSG during the interval between meetings. The chair-appointed members are considered members until the election of a new chairman which occurs at the end of each meeting. In this way the number of members of the PBSG is assured not to exceed 25. The intent of the group is to seek consensus on issues before it. However, when consensus on important issues cannot be reached, recommendations can be reached by a simple majority vote of the 15 government-appointed members.
For participation in working meetings of the PBSG a third category titled "Invited Specialists" is also recognized. Invited Specialists are not considered members, but are invited, because of their particular expertise to participate in a given meeting or parts of the meeting as designated by the Chairman. The Chair will solicit recommendations from members of names of persons that should be considered as Invited specialists. Preferably invited specialist must be specialists on polar bears or related scientific fields.
These guidelines are intended to maintain the integrity of the PBSG as a small working group of technical specialists on polar bears and to ensure its independence as a scientific specialist group under IUCN while also acting as an advisory group to the governments signatory to the Agreement, and to the international conservation community.