"It would seem that we should learn from our mistakes and strive to do better; not use them as a rationale for doing continued harm."

Very true. But I prefer actions over words to prove one's true heart.

Lets use Aluminum as an example of this statement.

If this were ture in our lives as fisherman we would use less Aluminum because we know that it take massive amounts of electricity to process the material from raw sources to recycled. TYet in our lifetime Aluminum use has gone up some 15,000 times for the avg. person in the US. think about all the beer and soda cans you use in a year, auto parts,home uses,foil for cooking, how many here have aluminum boats? How many here use less aluminum in there lives today or demand with a dollar vote that their products be made from recycled materials? Or is it easier to focus on what the other guy is doing or not doing?

The Columbia River once held the largest Salmon runs in the history of the world. The dams that provided cheap electricity made the use of inexpensive Aluminum possible in our lifetime. So the foil you use to cook that hatchery fish killed the wild fish it replaced.