Nature - autonomous learning

158 de-naturalisationSubsequently (from 1890) a second company was awarded this exclusiveland-sealing licence. Between 1870 and 1910, the two American land-basedsealing companies averaged profits of over 100 per cent – a fact whichindicates just how lucrative fur-sealing was at this time. During the sameperiod, settlers in the new province of British Columbia realised that theytoo could enjoy the economic rewards of sealing by shooting or spearingfur seals as they swam along the coast in early spring each year. Meanwhile,the Russians and Japanese – who had been sea-sealing for generations –continued to take a share of the fur-seal population once the seals left thePribilof Islands in late summer. By the early twentieth century, sealers in thefour countries had reduced 3.5 million seals (in 1870) to just a few tensof thousands.The near-decimation of the fur-seal population was arguablythe first international ‘environmental problem’ of the twentieth century. Italmost brought the countries involved to war, as each argued that it wasentitled to harvest seals without restriction.The problem was only solvedafter several years of diplomacy, culminating in the North Pacific Fur SealConvention of 1911.This precedent-setting agreement sought to protectthe seals while making money off their slaughter in a controlled way.Specifically, all sea-sealing was banned because sealing on the Pribilofs(controlled by the USA) was the only way to count accurately how manyseals were being killed each year. In return for losing their sealing fleets,Canada, Japan, Russia and California were given a fair percentage of themoney made by Pribilof sealing each year.From a Marxist perspective, the virtual destruction of the seal herdby 1911 exemplifies the liability of capitalist societies to destroy their ownnatural-resource base. In other words, it illustrates the fact that capitalismis an ‘ecologically irrational’ economic system which generates environmentalproblems as part of its ‘normal’ functioning. Let me explain. Earlierin this chapter I discussed the Marxist concept of the mode of production.A mode of production, you will recall, is the particular way a given society(or societies) produces goods and services. In capitalist societies, goods andservices are produced in the following way:MPM...CP...C*...M + LP