On 8 December, the Japanese Diet and the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe enacted a major reform of the country’s Basic Fisheries Law.
The outline of the draft legislation, posted recently on the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry website, sets out the goals of the reform, with a key reform being that resource management will be based on stock assessments.
This will require dramatically increasing such assessments, though estimates will also be based on early catch data. A total allowable catch (TAC) is then to be determined. Japan currently manages most species using a total allowable effort (TAE) system, in which the number, size, and period of operation of fishing boats, and the types of gear allowed are regulated. In comparison with other countries, Japan has set a TAC for only a few species: saury, Alaska pollock, sardines, mackerel, Southern mackerel, horse mackerel, squid, and snow crab. Under the new law, the number of species for which a TAC is set will increase.
The government may take measures to stabilize the fishermen’s income through support for vessel reduction. At the same time however, it may eliminate regulations that impede the use of larger fishing vessels in order to improve efficiency.
The government is to maintain and restore resources to a sustainable level through management on the principle of maximum sustainable yield. This requires setting recovery plans for overfished species. Where TAC management is introduced, management is to be by individual fishery quotas (IQ). The Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries for the prefectural governor will take into consideration the catch record and set a fishing quota for each ship. Transfer of quotas is to be allowed only in certain cases, such as assignment of a ship to another owner.
In Japan, prefectural governors assign fishing rights, giving priority to fishery cooperatives tied to local ports. The new law will allow governors more ability to assign rights to companies in order to fully utilize the sea. Where existing fishery right holders (i.e., the fishery cooperative members) are deemed to be properly and effectively utilizing fishing grounds, they will continue to hold the right. In the case of no existing fishery rights-holder, or underutilization of the rights, the governor can assign the rights to those who will contribute most to the development of the regional fishery industry. Fishermen will be obliged to report production information to the government, and this information will help to determine whether the fishery is well-managed and fully utilized.
The main gist of the reform is to a certain degree to privatize fishing rights. The old system gave priority to local fishery cooperatives tied to local ports. The new system introduces individual quotas based on vessel ownership and allows prefectural governors to award aquaculture sites to groups other than local fishery cooperatives, where doing so is thought to contribute to the development of the fishery.
Additionally, the management of the fishery cooperatives is to be overhauled, by requiring transparent election of cooperative leaders. Professional officers for sales and promotion are to be introduced, and the books are to be audited by certified public accountants.
A representative of the Fisheries Agency told SeafoodSource that actually writing the detailed regulations to implement the law is expected to be completed within two years.
Wakao Hanaoka, founder and CEO of Seafood Legacy – a Tokyo-based consultancy that helps producers, retailers, foodservice companies, and NGOs establish pre-competitive partnerships to advance responsible production and sourcing practices in fisheries and aquaculture – was an expert advisor to the Regulatory Reform Promotion Council on Fisheries, a regulatory reform promotion group under the Cabinet Office. Hanaoka said in an interview with SeafoodSource before the law was passed that he supports the move because it strengthens Japanese resource management.
The Environmental Defense Fund, a U.S. nonprofit organization that focuses on designing market-based solutions to environmental problems, supports rights-based fishing management as promoting sustainability.
“The reform package incorporates several recommendations from EDF including expanding stock assessments to cover all commercial stocks and increasing the percentage of catch managed with science-based catch limits,” the group said in a statement. “In addition, the reforms include requiring recovery plans for overfished stocks within 10 years and establishing a system of individual vessel quotas with some transferability.”
