Efforts to protect the environment can hinder economic growth. Management agencies would set limits and allow fisherman to buy and sell permits. Greenpeace argues against any plan that allows the owning of a natural resource.
Government subsidies are the target of both sides.
In North Carolina s Tar-Pamlico River Basin, heavy runoff from farms, dairies and timber operations has killed millions of fish due to oxygen depletion caused by nutrients in the rivers. Non-point pollution cleanup has been left to local authorities, environmentalists, industry officials, and farmers by the EPA because of the difficulty of dealing with this difficult problem. But the public is unlikely to let the administration get too far away from the environmental trends that have been set since the first Earth Day. Conservationists are finding ways to connect economic decisions with environmental protection by entering the market themselves. Defenders of Wildlife and the Nature Conservancy, are two groups that are applying capitalism to environmental protection, buying up land and compensating ranchers for losses of livestock due to grizzly bears and wolves.