Polar bears are the poster children of the environmental movement—mascots for climate change, splashed across donation drives and awareness campaigns. But “Trade Secret,” a new documentary directed by Australian cinematographer Abraham Joffe, pulls back the curtain on a reality most people don’t realize: these Arctic icons are still legally hunted and sold around the world.
Joffe discovered the polar bear skin trade on an Arctic expedition in 2012. He was floored—not just by the trade itself but by how few conservation activists even knew about it. The world’s most symbolic animal’s slaughter was being “quietly sanctioned by law,” he writes in the production notes.
The film is loud in its depiction of the polar bear trade and doesn’t shy away from the dark side. With chilling scenes of warehouses and showrooms filled to the brim with polar bear skins and close-ups of their mangled, dead faces, “Trade Secret” feels heavier than most environmental documentaries. The film pairs sweeping Arctic cinematography with stark footage of hunting and trafficking.
At the post-screening conversation at the Crescent Theater on Nov. 14th, Joffe acknowledged that previous marine and Arctic projects “have been quite gentle,” highlighting species behavior rather than conflict.
“We are at a time now that there is a need for more confronting storytelling, as well as the feel-good sort of nature series,” Joffe said.
The film’s subjects—investigative journalist Adam Cruise, wildlife advocate Iris Ho and polar bear researcher Ole J. Liodden—ultimately fail to secure a trade ban. That failure isn’t the end of the story. It’s part of the point. It underscores how formidable the political and economic forces driving the wildlife trade remain and how much public awareness is still needed.
A major portion of the film unfolds at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the United Nations treaty that regulates international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora. Joffe recalled arriving “naively… thinking this is a conservation gathering,” only to discover “a trade summit” defined by “geopolitics” and “a lot of horse trading.” Cruise faced similar reactions. When he raised concerns about the polar bear trade, he was dismissed as irrelevant or extreme.
Joffe noted that the European Parliament recently passed a resolution calling for stronger polar bear protections, saying the film’s trailer “impacted a lot of these voting parliamentarians.” But polar bears still aren’t on the agenda for the next CITES meeting in Uzbekistan.
Cruise explained in the film that Canada is the only country supplying commercial polar bear skins, exporting “more than 4,000 hides… peaking at around 300–400 in 2012 [and] 2013… Most pelts are sold to buyers in China, where a full hide can fetch as much as $60,000 and is often used for luxury clothing or as a rug.”
The ecological impact is similarly troubling. Hunters target the largest and strongest bears—a kind of survival of the unfittest. As these animals are removed from the gene pool, only the smallest and weakest polar bears will remain, leaving the species even less equipped to survive in their changing environment.
Even if the polar bear trade isn’t dramatically decreasing populations right now, some conservationists are concerned that “allowing trade in the parts of threatened or potentially threatened animals only serves to encourage a market for these products and poaching for these products,” says Jill Sohms, a professor of environmental studies at USC.
Ultimately, Joffe hopes “Trade Secret” sparks “accountability and… deeper public conversations about how we treat endangered species in a time of profound ecological crisis.”
He added, “Being transparent in your messaging and marketing is what it boils down to,” especially when major institutions portray themselves as protectors while supporting these trade policies.
These environmental crises aren’t distant tragedies. They’re shaped by real-time political decisions, economic incentives and the stories that the public trusts. Joffe hoped that the documentary shows that “we should be able to challenge our biggest institutions about policy,” and we students are exactly the ones poised to do so.
“Trade Secret” urges the next generation to act: scrutinize institutional narratives, demand transparency in conservation and push for policies that truly protect endangered species.