On February 24, in Moscow, the Marine Mammal Council held a consultative meeting on the conservation of polar bears and changes to its conservation status. Experts from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources (Rosprirodnadzor), Sistema Mass Media, the National Research Institute for Nature Protection, Wrangel Island Gas Processing Plant, the Russian Academy of Sciences' Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the World Wildlife Fund and representatives of the Administration of the Chukotka Autonomous Area attended the meeting. The main issue on the agenda was to change the status of polar bears in the CITES, from Appendix II to Appendix I. Upon approval of the council's decision, obtaining permits to transport any bear products across the border will be very difficult and protracted.