industry, some governments provide tax credits to companies adopting high LEED
standards, and require contractors to adopt LEED standards on their building projects. This has become an important consideration for construction firms, which
choose to purchase FSC-labeled products because they benefit from reduced taxes
and enlarged access to bidding on projects. Although these firms and the buyer
groups do not directly deal with the public, nor are very visible to consumers, they
are both ultimately motivated by environmental concerns of individual consumers,
and by their desire to associate their corporate brand with environmental responsibility towards consumers. The LEED standards and buyers’ groups have, in fact,
provided a mechanism where individual consumers can influence the behaviour of
companies which, otherwise, would not directly respond to individual consumers.
4.3.4 The Seafood Industry (Marine Fisheries)
This industry faces the same fundamental problem as do the oil, mining, and timber
industries: rising world population and affluence leading to increasing demand for
decreasing supplies. As the world population moves from the mainland towards the
coast within a country, the demand for seafood will increase. In particular, more than
half the world’s population lives within 50 km of the seacoast. As a by-product of
this increasing seafood demand, the sea provides employment for 2–3% of the
world’s population. Fishing forms an important basis of the economies of many
countries.
It is not easy to manage renewable biological resources, but marine fisheries
present further difficulties. Not only for fisheries limited to areas controlled by a
single nation, but even more for fisheries spreading over areas under the jurisdiction
of several countries and have been the earliest to collapse, as no single nation can
enforce its will. Furthermore, fisheries in the open seas, beyond the 200-mile
(320 km) marine limit, are outside the jurisdiction of any national government.
Diamond (2011) argues that, if properly managed, the world’s seafood resource
could be developed to sustain a catch even higher than present day levels. However,
the tragedy of the commons provides the main reasons behind all present failures to
do so:
(1) the difficulty for consumers to strike an agreement in spite of a mutual benefit,
(2) a general lack of regulation and effective management, and
(3) the uneconomical subsidies that many governments pay for political reasons –
namely, large unprofitable fishing fleets, oversized compared to their fish stocks,
and entailing overfishing.
Overfishing also leads to damaging the fish reserves because most seafood is
caught by netting and other methods that entail the haulage of unwanted animals as
well. This by-catch represents quite a significant proportion of the total catch, which
is thrown back overboard. However, by-catch mortality could be avoided by a
change of fishing gear and practices. Heavy damage to marine habitats on the seabed
4.3 Extractive Industries Causing Environmental Concerns
119
standards, and require contractors to adopt LEED standards on their building projects. This has become an important consideration for construction firms, which
choose to purchase FSC-labeled products because they benefit from reduced taxes
and enlarged access to bidding on projects. Although these firms and the buyer
groups do not directly deal with the public, nor are very visible to consumers, they
are both ultimately motivated by environmental concerns of individual consumers,
and by their desire to associate their corporate brand with environmental responsibility towards consumers. The LEED standards and buyers’ groups have, in fact,
provided a mechanism where individual consumers can influence the behaviour of
companies which, otherwise, would not directly respond to individual consumers.
4.3.4 The Seafood Industry (Marine Fisheries)
This industry faces the same fundamental problem as do the oil, mining, and timber
industries: rising world population and affluence leading to increasing demand for
decreasing supplies. As the world population moves from the mainland towards the
coast within a country, the demand for seafood will increase. In particular, more than
half the world’s population lives within 50 km of the seacoast. As a by-product of
this increasing seafood demand, the sea provides employment for 2–3% of the
world’s population. Fishing forms an important basis of the economies of many
countries.
It is not easy to manage renewable biological resources, but marine fisheries
present further difficulties. Not only for fisheries limited to areas controlled by a
single nation, but even more for fisheries spreading over areas under the jurisdiction
of several countries and have been the earliest to collapse, as no single nation can
enforce its will. Furthermore, fisheries in the open seas, beyond the 200-mile
(320 km) marine limit, are outside the jurisdiction of any national government.
Diamond (2011) argues that, if properly managed, the world’s seafood resource
could be developed to sustain a catch even higher than present day levels. However,
the tragedy of the commons provides the main reasons behind all present failures to
do so:
(1) the difficulty for consumers to strike an agreement in spite of a mutual benefit,
(2) a general lack of regulation and effective management, and
(3) the uneconomical subsidies that many governments pay for political reasons –
namely, large unprofitable fishing fleets, oversized compared to their fish stocks,
and entailing overfishing.
Overfishing also leads to damaging the fish reserves because most seafood is
caught by netting and other methods that entail the haulage of unwanted animals as
well. This by-catch represents quite a significant proportion of the total catch, which
is thrown back overboard. However, by-catch mortality could be avoided by a
change of fishing gear and practices. Heavy damage to marine habitats on the seabed
4.3 Extractive Industries Causing Environmental Concerns
119