WWF and Canon Europe have launched a Save the Polar Bear website as an educational tool to teach children about the environmental impacts of climate change. The site, hosted on the enhanced WWF-Canon Polar Bear Tracker will have a variety of activities suitable for children aged from seven to eleven. One may access the site via the Avantech Limited website www.avantech.com.mt and follow the on-screen instructions.

The website aims to be fun and engaging, and with the aid of two animated polar bear cubs named Auro and Borea, children will learn about threats to polar bears’ habitat, about the issues and challenges of climate change, their own impact on the environment, and how they can each make a difference.

The Polar Bear Tracker was launched in 2002 by WWF’s Arctic Programme and the Norwegian Polar Institute to track polar bears in the Svalbard archipelago. Canon recognised the importance of the project and became involved because polar bears are a key indicator of climate change and its effects on the Arctic. Thanks to Canon’s support, WWF is now able to increase its support for polar bear research and to gain valuable information on how changes in sea ice affect this charismatic species.

Due to global warming, the sea ice on which polar bears live melts earlier and earlier every year, leaving them with a smaller area in which to find food. Though pollution and hunting are other threats to polar bears, climate change is the biggest of them all. Unless humanity takes radical action to reduce its emissions of global warming gases such as carbon dioxide, we are unlikely to be able to save the polar bear. The announcement of the children’s site is timed to coincide with Canon Europe’s 50th anniversary.