Saving the world should be easier.

According to the world's scientists, polar-bear numbers are declining, be it from global warming, over-hunting or a simple lack of bears getting laid.

The solution should be pretty simple: stop killing polar bears and start encouraging them to have more sex.

The part about not killing them, however, just isn't possible given that many Northern Aboriginal communities rely on polar-bear hunts for food, as well as money paid by gun-toting Americans searching for the perfect bearskin rug for porno night. If you can find an alternate way for Inuit living in Resolute Bay, Nunavut, to pull in the $40,000 they'll earn for a single hunt, maybe send the idea to Santa's workshop and ask him to walk it over to the Resolute Bay town hall. You'll be a hero.

And that's the problem: environmentalism just isn't practical in some cases.

For example, conservationists in Africa will tell you that it's pretty hard to stop a starving man from killing a cheetah to feed his family. You can tell a poor African all about the environment and species diversity and the delicate balance of an ecosystem, but the dude still has to eat, and he probably won't care what order of beast makes it onto the table so long as it fills his kids' stomachs.

That's a hard pill to swallow when you're thinking about having to tell your own children about all the magnificent animals that used to exist before we killed them all because we were greedy and stupid.

Conversely, it's easy to be a bit of a racist and pull out a we-know-best attitude, telling all the 'ignorant savages' what our scientists have discovered, then asking them to put down their spears. It's so very easy, and so very European, to say that we have to save our environment even if it means disrupting thousand-year-old Aboriginal traditions.

Sorry, guys - no more hunting.

But that isn't really fair. The world's Aboriginals were managing the environment pretty well until a bunch of asshole Europeans showed up and started shooting everything with fur and heartbeat, and now that we've had our 500-year party, we're asking them to help clean up the bottles.

Environmental stewardship is a pretty important part of the Aboriginal culture, so it strikes me as the ultimate irony that white people are now knocking on igloos and asking the inhabitants to give up their livelihood to save the polar bears.

It's a conundrum, and the situation is playing itself out right now, for good or evil. According to news reports, the United States will soon be banning the importation of polar-bear trophies after classifying the species as "threatened," meaning places such as Resolute Bay won't be able to bank on Texans dropping bills to bag a bear in the future.

The environmentalists in Washington will perhaps rightfully feel as if they've done the natural world a great service, but Wal-Mart hasn't quite made its way to the Arctic Circle yet, so I'm sure a lot of Inuit guides are starting to wonder what they're going to do for employment next winter when the Americans don't show up with their Benjamins.

It's an incredible problem, and I have no idea how to solve it.

All I can say is we've created one hell of a mess.

Mike Warkentin only kills fish for food.