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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 



In consecutive years - 1972 and 1973 - the United States 

 enacted landmark legislation to protect marine mammals (the 

 Marine Mammal Protection Act ("MMPA")) and joined with four 

 other countries in an international agreement to protect the 

 world's polar bear populations (the Agreement on the 

 Conservation of Polar Bears) . See Addendum. Although both 

 initiatives borrowed heavily from the concepts and goals of 

 each other (deliberations leading up to the MMPA and the 

 Agreement occurred concurrently) , the provisions of the final 

 law and international treaty did not result in a perfect fit. 

 In some respects, the MMPA has proven to be more protective 

 than the Agreement, and vice versa. These inconsistencies 

 persist today, even though section 108(a)(4) of the MMPA 

 requires the federal government to seek comparable levels of 

 protection for marine mammals under the MMPA and international 

 agreements, and Article VI. 1. of the Agreement requires each 

 party to enact legislation to fulfill its requirements. 



Polar bears remain at risk from human activities. In the 

 early 1970s, the principal threat was from hunting and the 

 cumulative effect of other lesser sources of impacts. Under 

 the Agreement and the MMPA, the threats posed by sport hunting 

 have been largely eliminated. Other threats exist, however. 

 These include: the possibility of injury or death to bears 

 caused by development activities; damage or destruction to 

 polar bear habitat from those activities; contamination of the 



(OW01-9700/DA930320.016) -IV- 12/2003 



79-705 0-94-6 



