Menhaden fishing is typical of many industries where the demand exceeds the sustainable output. regulation by the government or professional overseers has been the usual answer for such situations, as illustrated in tragedy of the commons cited at the beginning of this course. why is regulation necessary? can competitive business be guardians of natural resources? why or why not?

In this situation we are talking about about conflict of interests, one of the most common, the economical vs. the environmental interest.

- Regulation is necessary because without it the industries will just look to maximize their profit and neglect the environment, thus causing long term bad effects or extermination on the populations of fish, as well as disrupting and destroying the whole ecosystem.

- Competitive businesses are almost never guardians of the nature, they tend to maximize their profits, out compete the others, and have as bigger market as possible for placing their products, so instead of looking at the long term effects, both on their business and the well being of the nature, they just look to be the first on the market and make bigger profit.

Did you know it's illegal to own only one guinea pig in switzerland?   : )

Ithink a hope that