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That's you. A lot of people aren't going to act the same way. Just as society can't rely on private donations to fund welfare because enough people aren't going to contribute, we can't rely on everyone doing the right thing as far as environmental concerns go.I maintain a large stretch of forest as primarily a hunting property. I've done more to preserve natural ecosystems and species than any environmentalist in my state could ever hope to.
I could easily have this entire Forest leveled, disc everything up, and start farming it.
I choose not to because I understand its value beyond productive Acres. This property is also where the monarch butterflies stop for a day and a half during their migration. I don't tell people in my own Community or in my home state about it, because God only knows what would happen to my property rights if the environmentalist wackos ever found out about that.
In regards to problems like overfishing, what you've highlighted is more of a problem of the commons, then a problem of private property. If large swaths of the ocean were to be privately owned, this would actually incentivize aquaculture, and the cultivation of fish populations. Instead, the ocean is considered a common resource, so there is no incentive for any individual to invest anything back into the ocean at all.
My ownership of a forest shuts off access to other people being able to use said Forest. However, there is lots of public land that people are free to use to hunt or for recreational activity. There's no justifiable reason why beachfront should be treated any different. Some beachfront should stay public, but it's not the end of the world if some beach front is bought, sold, and possessed privately
Farmers in France just drove their sheep through a town square protesting against the government's introduction of wild wolves into the region. Ranchers in the US used to kill wolves on sight, and didn't care whether they were endangered or not.
Fish move/migrate hundreds and thousands of miles. We can't give up large swaths of the ocean to private ventures. This would totally screw over poor countries , and the working/middle class here. We end up with a sort of feudalism, where a small minority owns all wilderness & bodies of water , forcing everyone to toil for them into perpetuity How would you like it if Bill Gates, Sting, Buffet, Bezos, Zukerberg and other super rich bought up all the wilderness and farm lands and barred you from hunting, fishing, camping, using recreational vehicles, treking etc..on dam near all the open space in your state and the states around you. Now if you think this is unacceptable, imagine sovereign wealth funds and global super rich buying up vast tracts of wilderness in America and preventing the locals from using it. By government owing soo much public lands, we the public get to enjoy access to it.
I don't have an issue with people owing some small patches of coastline, as long as it is an area of unnatural beauty and utility and the amount of privately owned coastline is but a tiny fraction of all accessible coastline.
Look at places like Indonesia, where the rich and corporations are clearing out vast tracts of wilderness, causing environmental catastrophe. The destruction of habitat endangers Orangutan and other species. The slash and burn clear cutting has caused serious smog health related issues in their major cities. The only reason we aren't as screwed up as many of these developing nations is because we already did a lot of what they are doing now, and then enacted legislation to protect the environment. Remove government safeguards, and you invite pollution of our water and lands. Mining companies do not return expended open pit mines to a state amenable to the flourishing of nature out of some civic duty; they were forced to through legislation.
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