Fishery Commons in Japan: Their Legal Framework and Recent Crises

Abstract

"Coastal fisheries in Japan is very unique in the world in the sense that its major part has been managed by fishery cooperative associations (FCAs) of local nature. Each FCA has its own rule of harvest times (seasons, days, or hours of operation), mesh sizes of fishing nets, and others for sustainable yields. At the same time, each FCA is entitled with fishery rights of various nature over specific sea (or freshwater) surfaces. Such fishery rights are deemed to be real rights under the Fishery Act. Hence, each FCA can be considered as a common, which we call a fishery common in this paper. The purpose of this paper is then three folds. Firstly, the paper describes the history and present of such fishery commons in view of the old and current Fishery Acts of Japan. Legal structure of multi-level fishery resources governance is analyzed. Secondly, the paper points out the recent trend of weakening of FCAs by various reasons such as a nationwide policy of merging small, local FCAs into a large, prefectural FCA, politico-economic pressure on small FCAs to abandon fishery rights for industrial development (e.g., nuclear power plants construction) in coastal areas, conflict between traditional fishing activities of FCA members and new marine leisure of urban populace, and others. Thirdly, the paper proposes possible directions of re-strengthening local FCAs from the viewpoint of environmental governance. An example of such direction has already been seen in the recently arisen rural-urban linkage in the form of participation of urban consumers in tree planting activities of FCA members to propagate uo-tsuki-rin (fish breeding forest)."