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Nornickel to finance preservation of polar bears

According to the company’s Vice President Andrei Grachev, Nornickel is about to sign an agreement with the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources on preservation of that Arctic species

VLADIVOSTOK, September 2. /TASS/. The Norilsk Nickel Company (Nornickel) will finance works to preserve the polar bear population, the company’s Vice President Andrei Grachev told the Eastern Economic Forum on Thursday.

The polar bear is on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. It is also on the Red Data Books of Russia, the US and Canada.

According to Grachev, Nornickel is about to sign an agreement with the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources on preservation of that Arctic species.

"The agreement will list the projects, which Nornickel will finance in the public-private partnership format," he said. "The projects are related to preservation and monitoring of [the polar bear] population and to scientific and educational measures."

The agreement will be a part of the Ecology National Program. The company does not announce the amount of investments in the project to preserve the polar bear.

Russia has three populations of the polar bear - the Kara-Barents Seas population, the Laptev Sea population, and the Chukokta-Alaska population. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says the global population is not more than 20-25 thousand animals.

About forum

The VI Eastern Economic Forum is held in Vladivostok on September 2-4 in a hybrid format. The business program’s key topic is "New opportunities for the Far East in a world under transformation." The forum organizer is the Roscongress Foundation. TASS is the event’s general media partner and official host photo agency.