Photo credit: Minik Holding & Aviaq S. HolmThe ninth biennial Meeting of the Parties to the 1973 Polar Bear Agreement originally scheduled for November 4-7, 2025 will be held online on December 2-5, 2025.
The Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears was entered into by the five polar bear range states Canada, Norway, Greenland, the Russian Federation and the United States in 1973.
The practice of biennial Meetings of the Parties was initiated with a meeting held in Shepherdstown, USA in 2007. Since then the Parties have convened in Tromsø, Norway 2009, Moscow, Russia in 2013, Ilulissat, Greenland in 2015, Longyearbyen, Norway in 2020. The biennial meeting in 2023 was an online event hosted by Canada.
The purpose of the 2025 Meeting of the Parties is to:
- Provide update on conservation status of polar bears and their habitats throughout their range and in each of the Range States
- Address the final review of the 2015-2025 Circumpolar Action Plan (CAP) as well as decide on future plans of collaborative issues
- Highlight and discuss other key issues of relevance to polar bear conservation as well as financial and administrative issues in the agreement
PBRS Meeting of the Parties, December 2-5 draft agenda (here)
Polar Bear Agreement 50 years key milestones (1973-2023) - presentation prepared for the 50 years anniversary of the Agrement at the PBRS Meeting of the Partis in 2023: Video and PDF copy of the presentation.
Announcements: