Resource Extraction. Owner shall grant no rights for mining, drilling, exploring for or removal of, water, minerals, oil, gas, or other substances from the Property. There shall be no mining, drilling, exploring for or removal of, water, minerals, oil, gas, or other substances from the Property [except as identified and described in Exhibit B]. (Delete this phrase from the covenant if there are no easements or other property rights that are presently in effect identified in Exhibit B.)
Resource Extraction. A variety of provisions of Trans-Pacific Partnership, including “investor-state,” quota prohibitions and more, are likely to encourage the increased export of raw materials throughout the Pacific Rim. That spells more logging, drilling and mining in some of the most biodiverse ecosystems left on Earth. Not only that, but the pact is expected to explicitly ban requirements that raw materials (such as logs) be first converted into “value added” products (such as boards) that support and incentivize sustainable, local economies. Expanding Pollution Offshore and Enabling Unhealthy Consumption Patterns at Home One of the reasons manufacturers are pushing for the Trans-Pacific Partnership is to seek out “low cost labor alternatives” to Chinese sweatshops in countries like Vietnam. In addition to cheap labor, however, many developing countries also offer manufacturers cheap energy and lax environmental enforcement. As such, the carbon footprint and other environmental impacts associated with producing a good overseas is often much higher than it would be producing the same good in the United States. While typically not as high as the production-related emissions, the pollution associated with then also shipping a finished product across the Pacific Ocean to reach the U.S. market is by no means inconsequential. Access to lax environmental enforcement, cheap energy and sweatshop labor overseas also effectively subsidizes the production of certain consumer products — including, particularly, consumer electronics — thus enabling the sale of short lifecycle products that contribute massively to e-waste. The throw-away culture that is encouraged in the United States would be a considerably less popular lifestyle option if manufacturers couldn’t as easily avoid commonsense labor and environmental rules by simply moving their production abroad.
