Mikaela Martinez Dettinger - Overfishing and Leopold's Land Ethic

 In the Netflix Documentary Seapspiracy the global problem of overfishing and ocean pollution is brought to light. Among one of the many issue within the fishing industry was the killing of dolphin in Japan and the overfishing of Bluefin Tuna, an endangered species. The documentary showed how dolphins were being rounded into a cove in Taiji, Japan and were being killed or taken alive. The dolphins were assumed to be taken alive to support the Sea-world type industry that keeps marine creatures in enclosed environments to put on a show for crowds. In this industry, a live dolphin can be bought for very expensive prices. This should have made the Japanese dolphin fisheries' motivation clear. However, it was found that for every one dolphin kept alive, 12 more were killed. Most of the killed dolphins were even just thrown back into the water. At first, there was no logical explanation for killing the dolphins as there is no market for dolphin meat. But then the reason was made clear by an expert on dolphin conservation and overfishing that was interviewed in the documentary. The dolphins were being killed because there is a huge market for the meat of Bluefin Tuna. Bluefin Tuna is one of the most expensive fish that can be bought for their meat, and they are endangered due to overfishing. Rather than recognizing overfishing as the cause for the decline in the Bluefin Tuna population, the fisheries of Japan have taken to blaming the dolphins, the natural predators of Bluefin Tuna. Rather than scaling back on fishing the Tuna, they killed the dolphins to eliminate their competition for the fish. However, witch dolphins and tuna rapidly declining, the entire ecosystem of the oceans suffers because the predator-prey balance of the smaller fish that the dolphin and tuna consume is out of wack. This, in time, could result in a cataclysmic loss of biodiversity within the ocean. If this happens, what creature will the fishermen find to blame then? 

This example of how humankind tends to mess with the order of the natural world lends itself to supporting Aldo Leopold's conqueror theory. He argues that humankind messes with the biotic pyramid. The biotic pyramid is the hierarchical structure of predators and prey which keeps ecosystems in balance. Leopold argues that we mess with this because we see it through a perspective of utility meaning that we interact with it for our own purposes, like conquerors. In doing this, we either fail to recognize the intricacy of the natural balance of the biotic pyramid, or we act as though we understand it when really we don't. Leopold uses this to argue that we should incorporate biotic life into our considerations of how we use and interact with the earth in something he calls a 'Land Ethic'. The Land Ethic means that we should include the extra-human in our community which we care for and take into account in our decision making. This Land Ethic is similar to the concept of a moral community in Zen Buddhism. The moral community is the holistic inclusion of living beings, or sentient being depending on the Buddhist, into the community which is cared for by the individual and mankind. 

If this approach were taken into the relationship between the fishermen and the dolphins and Bluefin Tuna in Taiji, then there might be more of an effort to restore the Tuna population in order to support fishing rather than killing off their natural predators to reduce competition. Perhaps even the consumers would use their purchasing power to reduce the demand for Bluefin Tuna and thus force the hand of the fishermen to allow the population to regenerate. However, all of humanity has yet to head the warning of Leopold. We still claim to know how the biotic pyramid works and consequently kill off dolphins in the attempt to replace ourselves as the main predators of Bluefin Tuna. In doing this we are not only rejecting these other animals from consideration as a part of our living community, but we are also causing harm to the ecosystems they live in which may soon become irreversible.