“Is that a real polar bear?!” – not a question you hear very often but by the end of this summer, it was a question I heard a dozen times a day, as I was lucky enough to be an Events Intern for Greenpeace and one of the perks of this job was that I got to be the back end of ‘Paula’, our Polar bear.
Paula made an appearance in a wet field at Nova in West Sussex, in a glade at Latitude in Suffolk, amongst the healing fields at WOMAD in Wiltshire and next to a beautiful lake in the sunshine at Wilderness in Oxfordshire…all many miles away from her natural habitat of the Arctic, but probably no more alien to her than the open sea she would see up in the Arctic instead of the usual frozen ice.
To coincide with the 100 year anniversary of the famous Arctic explorer Captain Scott’s death, and the launch of our Save the Arctic campaign, we took the Arctic on the road, giving people the chance to dress up as Arctic explorers, learn more about the very real challenges that are facing the Arctic region today, to sign up to our campaign and to meet Paula, our Polar Bear.
‘Paula’ was the star of the show when she ‘woke up’ each hour, with the faces of children enthralled by this lumbering ‘tame’ polar bear, and the adults loved her just as much, prompting questions of “Are there people inside?” and “is it animatronic?” – no one could quite figure it out! Well let me tell you, being inside a polar bear, and walking around for 15 minutes is a very sticky and sweaty job but it was so lovely to head back inside the ice cave to a chorus of “Goodbye Paula!” from the captivated children.
‘Paula bear’ really helped to get the message across, that the Arctic really does need saving, that there is a real and immediate threat to polar bears and all those other animals and the 4 million humans who depend on the Arctic for their survival. But it seems that as the ice melts at a terrifying rate, and rather than prioritising its’ protection for the future, the oil reserves underneath are being sold to the highest bidder, regardless of the catastrophic effects it will have on the Arctic. We cannot let this happen.
We finished the festival season with thousands of sign-ups and some overwhelmingly positive support for Greenpeace and the campaign. It was lovely to have been part of such an amazing team at the festivals and part of the wider global movement to help protect and Save the Arctic. If you haven’t already, please go to www.savethearctic.org and add your name to the 2 million people who’ve already pledged their support to save the Arctic.
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