EU calls for Polar bear protection

October 2025: The European Parliament adopted a resolution ahead of the upcoming CITES COP20, urging all EU Member States to advocate for stronger protection of polar bears and to address the threats posed by the international trade in trophies and hides.

While not yet a formal proposal for uplisting under CITES, this resolution represents a significant policy step towards a future uplisting.

The motion was directly informed by new research from Ole J. Liodden (from the film) and was catalysed by the film’s trailer, which we are told had an impact on parliamentary members.

There are currently 20 recognised polar bear subpopulations across the Arctic - but for more than half of them, there is insufficient or outdated population data. Scientists, conservationists, and Indigenous communities all acknowledge that polar bears face an increasingly precarious future due to the climate crisis. Yet international commercial trade and trophy hunting continues.

Could this EU resolution be the first step towards an uplisting of polar bears to Appendix 1 (which bans international trade) at CITES in 2028?