Fishing about and about fishing

I last wrote on Japan in the May WF issue, following the series of disasters - earthquake, tsunami and the Fukushima meltdown. Since then, the surviving NE Japan's fishermen and its fishing industry have been struggling to stay afloat and gradually return to anything that resembles normalcy. Recently and quite timely, Mitsutaku Makino of the Japan's Fisheries Research Agency produced a textbook "Fisheries Management in Japan", (Springer, 2011, www.springer.com, 200 p.; US$129, GBP 90, EUR 100). This book will help non-Japanese readers to grasp the depth of the wounds the country endures, because Japan is world's leading fishing country and the fishing industry is playing a major economic and social role in the Japanese society, and according to Mr.Makino, it's the first English book in over 20 years on social aspects of Japanese fisheries.

The Japanese management system with its large community-based coops has always intrigued me, not less because the attempts by many development agencies to implant Western cooperative system in developing countries had been in most cases unsuccessful, while the Japanese coops seemed to operate satisfactorily. Fishermen and related workers who visited the Japanese coastal fisheries, always returned with positive impressions.

Bryan Pierce wrote in 2002 on the FISHFOLK discussion list: "I have travelled with commercial fishermen from Australia, and they would have taken the Japanese system home in their suitcases if they could have!" And: "What strikes me about the Japanese approach is that it seems to be "grass-roots" driven. Western systems, in my experience, tend to a "top down" approach heavily dependent on coercive action, and too often without either consent of the governed or much reference to reality.  My experience is that the Japanese approach is able to react far more quickly and has greater practical success". 

The present book's author seems to be of a similar opinion. "Due to the complexity of the system and its intensive nature – writes Makino – fisheries coordination and resource conservation cannot be implemented effectively in a top-down, command-and control manner".

For some 1,300 years, Japan has been committed to its own management system, which however transformed with time remained quite different from Western variants. Nowadays, some 190,000 fishermen, which form almost 90% of the total, operate in inshore and coastal waters, supplying some 62 kg per capita of sea-food or 55% of the average total protein intake to almost 130 mn Japanese people, who're the world's most obsessive fish-eaters. Doubtless, their fishery management system persevered in the teeth of the dynamics of time. Not just that; unlike some other systems… it's working!                  

The main difference between the "western" and the Japanese approaches consists in the community-oriented management of coastal fishery resources, where authority has been conferred to local people. This, in accordance with guiding concept of the government's fisheries management, namely, that it should be planned and executed by the resource users themselves. But, also in the management of offshore, industrial fisheries, while the national government plays a principal role in the plans and rules making, fisheries organizations participate in their implementation. 

In inshore and coastal fisheries of sedentary or locally stable species, at the community/municipality level, the management is controlled by Fisheries Cooperative Associations (FCA). In cases of widely distributed species, there're Fisheries Coordinating Committees, in which the government is playing more pronounced role, according with respective federations of local FCAs. 

Another form of participatory management consists of Fisheries Management Organizations (FMO), which are groups of fishermen who are targeting the same species or are employing similar fishing gear. They may be organized within FCAs, or consist of fishermen from several neighbouring FCAs, or even from several prefectures. The FMO-based management is growing (there're 1,738 FMOs in Japan – an over 13% increase since 2003).

As far as conservation of the resources goes, "local fishing is an integral component of local ecosystems, rather than a threatening intrusion into "pristine ecosystems". Therefore… local fishers play a core role in local ecosystem conservation activities, and public citizens are positively participating in such activities".

The following list of the book's 10 chapters would give the potential reader a good idea of what to expect: 1 – the Introduction gives a general information on the country, its fisheries and their associated institutions; 2 – A Brief Institutional History of Japanese Fisheries Management; 3 – Japanese Fisheries Today;    4 – Fisheries Management in Coastal Areas; 5 – Fisheries Management in Offshore Areas;       6 – Institutional Relationship Between Japanese Fisheries Management and the Ecosystem Approach;     7 – Marine Protected Areas; 8 – The UNESCO World Natural Heritage List and Local Fisheries;              9 – Comprehensive Management and Future Scenarios for Japanese Fisheries; 10 – Concluding Discussion.

Japanese traditional management has the form of input and technical controls. Presently, TAC is directed at only 8, mostly pelagic species. Based on the results of seaborne fishing surveys, it's set in a participatory process that involves fishermen's organizations, and prefectural and national authorities. TAC is mentioned also with respect to the dredge fishery for sea cucumbers, where it was set by the fishermen themselves. The author explains also why individual quota systems are costly, crude and hardly adjustable to the species life cycle, and unable to follow large fluctuations and assessment errors, which lowers their utility. It appears that they've got in Japan a well working fisheries management without the so idolized in the West and South individual and tradable quotas, catch shares, etc. 

This book should be read by every scholar and student interested in the Japan's way in involving producers and their organizations in the management of their resources.  Also all those who're involved in fisheries management in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand should consider it as an obligatory reading, and see how things could be done without alienating and dislocating fishermen from their jobs and bleeding fishing communities, by making their services to fisheries irrelevant. And, above all, my personal recommendation to the NOAA's head and the EU's Fisheries Commissioner: please, read this book. 

                                                          

Japanese small-scale bottom trawler

 

M. Ben-Yami Column                                                                                                                WORLD FISHING AND AQUACULTURE    Dec. 2015

 

Shetland Islands – Fishing and Cage-Farming Paradise

 

• A couple of months ago a rare visitor. Mr. John Goodlad – a Shetlander, who's not just local, but also Scottish Fishery personality, passed here with his beautiful daughter, whom my grandson took to swim in the warm Mediterranean waters, while John and I had some hours to talk mainly about the fisheries in his country, which spawned the present column. At the present time John is the Chairman of the Board of Shetland Catch, which is one of Europe’s largest pelagic processing plants, of the Scottish Pelagic Sustainability Group, of Shetland Fish Products – a fish meal and oil plant, Senior Fisheries Advisor to the Prince’s Charles International Sustainability Unit, of the Domestic Sectoral Panel, Board Member of the Sea Fish Industry Authority, and Chairman of Fisheries Innovations Scotland. The list of his past positions is even longer.

 

Commercial fishing was practiced by the islanders since the middle ages. Only artisanal and subsistence-oriented for centuries, it slowly developed into small-scale herring fishing industry. Towards the 20th Century, it relied mostly on second-hand boats acquired in Scotland. It took the devastating effect of the WW2 to start a recovery from the resulting almost "ground zero" condition of the industry. Nowadays, Shetland's fishing fleet is among the most advanced in the UK.

The Shetland Archipelago is situated amidst N. Atlantic fishing grounds on intersection of 2 lines: one running from North Scotland through the Orkneys to Shetland and the other running from Iceland through the Faroes and the Shetlands ending at Skagerrak Strait. It is around 170 km north of mainland Scotland, covers an area of 1,468 sq.km and has a coastline 2,702 km long. Lerwick, Shetland's capital and largest community, has a population of 7,000. About half of the archipelago's total population of some 23,200 people live within 16 km of Lerwick.

 

Only 16 of about 100 islands are inhabited. The main island of the group is known as Mainland. The other large islands, Yell, Unst, and Fetlar lie to the north and Bressay and Whalsay lie to the east. All, but one of the inhabited islands lie to the west of the Mainland.

Shetland, a fishing archipelago; its marine yields, wild and farmed, its fish processing  industry, and other fishery associated infrastructure are providing for bulk of its employment and economy. Shetland's fleet consists of 180 boats: 8 pelagic trawlers 60-80 m l. 25 bottom trawlers – 25-m + rest inshore 8-12 m boats fishing mainly shellfish. Their total production of 134,000 mt, worth UKP155 million in 2014, is made up by own wild catch, 50,000 mt landed in Shetlands by other fleets, 35,000 mt of farmed salmon, and 2,OOO mt of mussels. All this together is more than the total catch of England, Wales, and N. Ireland, combined, putting the Shetlanders second only to the Faroese with their per capita marine production.

 

Nowadays, while vessels are crewed mostly by Shetlanders, there're some foreign hands, mainly from the Philippines, hired to fill manpower gaps. The present fishing fleet consist of four pelagic trawlers catching herring that more recently has been expanding further north; four groundfish trawlers catching cod, haddock, and now abundant hake, and considerable amounts of monkfish that expanded throughout northeast Atlantic over last 20 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Wacky management. "Fish quotas are now a main problem.  -  says John. "Hake, which has become the "choke" sp., there's plenty of. A potentially disastrous situation has been developing whereby a lack of quota for one particular species may prevent you from risking going to sea and fishing in case you catch that species. If this were to happen what would you do? You can't throw it back for now you need to land it (despite the fact you don't have sufficient quota to cover these landings).  I guess you could eat it but, I'm afraid this isn't a practical solution. The most infuriating aspect of this situation is that you may have plenty of quota for other species, but you're stuck with the abundant hake".

This is what I heard from one fisherman some time ago: "Searching for haddock this week we tried a fishing area 80 miles East of Shetland that's a good place for haddock this time of the year. Sadly we didna get any haddock but we did get a bumper haul of clean hake, which we have no quota for so our only option was to dump'm all over the side. Absolute madness!!!!".

"Naturally – said John - when all quota is exhausted, fisherman must either avoid the species for which he has  no more quota (difficult!), or discard any catches of that species, usually, dead".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            John Goodlad              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A small inshore Shetland fishing boat.

 

Aquaculture. Shetland is also a great producer of farmed salmon, raised in a very friendly environment. This is, because the archipelago's geographic location enables to run salmon farms in sites far removed from industrial and residential population centers where the water is not polluted and has good oxygen content. Local producers are claiming that their farmed salmon tastes like wild one.

The Shetland Islands are situated at the juncture of the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea in an ideal location also for sustainable certified organic aquaculture. One company, after almost a decade of development and cooperation with hatcheries, feed producers, and artisanal farmers, is now producing organic salmon, in accordance with the British standard for organic aquaculture, maintaining environmental and ecological conditions as high as anywhere in the world. It uses small-batch low stocking density of less than 10 kg/m.cu. of water, without antibiotics, synthesized pigments, and chemical antifouling agents. Fish are fed certified organic feed containing organic wheat and full-fat soy, combined with sustainable fish proteins. This feed regimen is close to natural one, only with more purity and control, with elevated Omega-3 fatty acid profiles, and environmental contaminants well below Federal guidelines. 
 

Not always one, whose job is to write up the world fisheries has the pleasure of writing mostly good news. Well, Shetland Islands definitely is Good News.