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The Prince of Wales has told the CEOs and chairmen of the world's leading consumer goods retailers and manufacturers to use their collective market power to force urgent and immediate change in the way ocean fisheries are managed.
Delivering the keynote address at the first ever Global Summit of The Consumer Goods Forum, in London, the Prince - a tireless campaigner on environmental issues - told more than one thousand delegates from the consumer goods industry that the world's major ocean fisheries will have collapsed by 2050, posing an "increasing threat to global security".
Retailers such as Walmart, whose insistence that its suppliers be certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council the Prince praised as "courageous", had achieved "remarkable things" individually. But ultimately the industry must work in concert to achieve truly sustainable solutions.
While it was impossible for many developing countries to monitor and enforce regulations, where they exist, if retailers were to demand full traceability from their suppliers, they could make a considerable difference, the Prince said.
The Prince also saw retailers as playing a stronger role in educating consumers on responsible consumption, stating "Not everyone reads a paper or watches television news, but everyone shops", and that retailers should "stimulate demand for sustainable fish" in their stores and also lobby government for regulatory support.
For this to happen, the Prince said, the human race needed to overcome its "collective hubris" and face facts. As a possible model, the Prince proposed a template drawn up by environmental group WWF, in which industry collectively pays for fisheries to be closed for a period and allowed to regenerate, effectively investing in a future market. The consequences, if industry failed to act, would be "truly terrifying," the Prince said. "No change," he underlined, "is not an option."
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