A hiatus while I went on hols. Now back and discouraged to read this in the Alaska Dispatch about soaring demand for polar bear hides from Russia and China. While I'll always champion the idea of the Arctic being a great plethora of places, all very different from each other, it seems clear that the circumpolar region needs regional controls in some environmental areas. This is one of them. The laws on polar bear hunting differ wildly from nation to nation (US has banned sport hunting of bears whereas both Canada and Russia allow it) and even within nations (Nunavut in Canada issues quotas, whereas Quebec does not) which leaves some bear populations much more vulnerable than others and could potentially decimate discrete populations in regions less regulated, which has implications not only for global populations but for a healthy gene pool in the less regulated, and thus more intensely hunted areas.