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WWF Polar Bear Expedition Diary

Margaret Williams, leader for WWF's Bering Sea & Kamchatka ecoregion, traveled to Chukotka, the northeastern most corner of Siberia on an expedition in April 2007. With several Russian and American colleagues, Margaret and her team traveled over 700 miles across the roadless, snow-covered Chukotka Peninsula to reach the small village of Vankarem, north of the Arctic Circle on the Chukchi Sea. The expedition is part of an ambitious effort to protect and study polar bears and address an increasing problem caused by climate change -- conflict between polar bears and humans.

Join Margaret on her journey across the vast and frozen tundra, and learn more about WWF's work in the Bering Sea & Kamchatka ecoregion.

Part 4: Arrival in Vankarem
After a long night of driving along a zimnik, a winter route traveled by vezdekhods taking products to the north, we arrive in the dark and quiet village of Vankarem - our final destination. It's just after 5:00 AM, and having traveled over 370 snowy, roadless miles in two and half days, we are thrilled to be here. Despite the early hour, a group of people are there to greet us as we stumble out of our bear den on wheels.

One of them is Sergey Kavriy, Vlad's brother and a key person in polar bear conservation. He is not only the leader of the WWF polar bear patrol but will be one of two members on the Russian side of the US-Russia bilateral commission overseeing the US-Russia polar bear treaty. The treaty is specifically aimed at the population of polar bears shared between the US and Russia, known as the Alaska Chukotka polar bear population. The treaty will establish bi-lateral conservation and monitoring of the polar bear and will create a mechanism for setting quotas of bears that can be legally harvested only by indigenous people, only for subsistence use.

Vankarem is the small village with a population of 140 where Sergey and Vlad were born and raised. Most of the residents are Chukchi. The Chukchi are one of several indigenous groups in the region and are descendents of the oldest people of eastern Siberia. Sergey and Vlad are widely respected in their communities and beyond. Vlad speaks the native Chukchi language, and maintains close communication and friendships with the village elders who have passed on to him the ethic and practice of sustainable use. From them he has reaped amazing stories, traditions and values that are vanishing from this place. He and Sergey are skilled hunters as well as true conservationists. "First and foremost, we were taught to think about tomorrow," Vlad tells me. In the coming days we see the importance of this philosophy as well as their ability to communicate it to others.

posted by World Wildlife Fund # 9:16 AM