Whole foods rightly suffered boycotts and consumer bans on their business when their CEO opened his mouth and stuck his Randian-soiled foot in it.
But now, credit where credit is due. Maybe Whole Foods should be given another chance because they may be starting a trend of ocean conservation that could spark a larger corporate environmental movement. It's in corporations' long-term interest to not destroy the earth in the end, so someone had to do this at some point.
The same will happen with climate change because at current rates of warming (on track for 4 degrees between 2050 - 2100 per my reading), the planet's "carrying capacity estimates [are] below one billion people," perhaps as soon as 2050.
Killing off 8 billion or so customers with unsustainable business practices isn't good for business. The children of the greedmongers will inevitably step in and say "what about us"?....
Anyhow, some good news for once! Whole foods is banning sales of "red-rated" fish "using ratings set by the Blue Ocean Institute, a conservation group, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California," per this NY Times article .
The company had originally planned to stop selling “red-rated” fish next year but moved up its deadline. The other fish it will no longer carry are Atlantic halibut, octopus, sturgeon, tautog, turbot, imported wild shrimp, some species of rockfish, and tuna and swordfish caught in certain areas or by certain methods. (Whole Foods has already stopped selling orange roughy, shark, bluefin tuna and most marlin.)
Although the new policy will affect fishermen nationwide, the reaction from Gloucester and other New England ports may be the unhappiest. New England has more overfished stocks than any other region, according to federal monitors, and its fishing industry has bridled — and struggled to survive — under strict regulations.
I feel bad for the fishermen but the government has obviously failed miserably to stand up to the food industry (see antibiotic-infested meat practices, which leads to worldwide superbugs, for best evidence of that).
Someone has to start conservation of resources and kudos to Whole Foods for doing so. Hopefully more businesses will follow their lead; it's in their interest to do so in the end.