The Philadelphia Society

Oak Brook Meeting

April 25, 1998

Jane S. Shaw and Orri Vigfusson

PERC Enviro-Capitalist Award

Presentation by Jane Shaw

To Orri Vigfússon

(Permission to quote this speech must be granted by the Author)

It's a pleasure to be here before the Philadelphia Society, an organization that knows what limited government means. That's an understanding that most of the country has lost, you know. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, "Invest in America-Buy a Congressman."

Of course, you can't buy a congressman. As Louisiana Senator John Breaux used to say, "You can only rent one."

What that means, as economist Richard Stroup often explains, is that every vote is up for grabs. Nothing in politics is secure. That's the difference between private property rights and government.

Nearly 20 years ago a popular economist, Lester Thurow, explained environmentalism in economic terms. He explained that environmental goods such as clean air and clean water are just like other consumer goods, except that they have to be provided collectively.

Well, for more than 20 years a number of people, many of them in this room, have been explaining where Lester Thurow went wrong. Starting with a book called Bureaucracy vs. the Environment, people, many of whom are in this room, such as John Baden, Terry Anderson, Richard Stroup, P. J. Hill, Don Leal, Fred Smith, R. J. Smith, Bruce Yandle, and more recently Lynn Scarlett, Jo Kwong, Roy Cordato and others, have been showing us that collective protection of the environment is fraught with high costs, unfairness, bureaucratic inertia and, most of all, often fails to get the job done.

Las year, Terry Anderson and Don Leal took another step. They published a book that looked at the bright side of environmental protection-and of course that means they looked at what is being done privately. Their book Enviro-Capitalists (Rowman & Littlefield) tells the story of many people around the globe who are acting quietly, independently, and creatively to protect and restore the environment. They are using market tools to preserve open space, develop habitat for wildlife, save declining species.

Today, we are pleased to honor one of those enviro-capitalists with PERC's 1998 Enviro-Capitalist Award.

Orri Vigfússon is a man who saves salmon. As many of you know, there have been severe declines in the numbers of Atlantic salmon in recent years. Many of these salmon die because of extensive commercial fishing. Through Mr. Vigfússon's efforts, however, more than a million salmon have returned to their homes to spawn, rather than losing their lives to commercial fishing.

Orri preserved salmon by using the tools of market exchange, which is based on private property rights. He didn't buy a congressman or a Member of Parliament. Mr. Vigfússon is the chairman of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund. Under his leadership, this fund has bought out commercial fishing rights off the coast of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. In other words, fishers who would otherwise have used their netting rights to obtain salmon instead halted or limited their fishing in return for a fee. Mr. Vigfússon's creative understanding of the potential for voluntary cooperation through market exchange and his ability to act on this understanding are the reasons why he is receiving this award.

Orri knows what it is to be an entrepreneur. In his workaday life in Iceland, he has carved out an extraordinary niche--or niche as some of the Eastern folks like to say. He distills vodka and sells it to-the Russians! Vodka to the Russians. Is that like carrying coals to Newcastle or what?

But his passion is salmon sport fishing (catch and release) and doing what he can to keep the salmon swimming through the rivers. Not only has he saved salmon, but he has shown that private ownership can lead to environmental protection. It's a lesson that we all need to remember.

I am pleased to present you, Orri Vigfússon, with PERC's Enviro-Capitalist Award. Thank you for your contributions to environmental protection through private property rights, the rule of law, and market exchange.