JAPAN - Miyagi Prefecture Governor Yoshihiro Murai believes that older and smaller-scale fishers will not be able to recover from last March’s earthquake and tsunami -- even with government help. Instead, he has proposed opening coastal waters to big-business investors. These waters are currently restricted to independent operators from Fisheries Cooperative Associations. The fishing cooperatives have responded negatively, arguing the move could push them out of the market. Many academics say that the proposed system would make coastal communities and ecosystems vulnerable to exploitation and abandonment.
Regardless, Murai has asked the central government to assign a special fishing zone where companies could fish with the same access to fishing licenses that cooperatives have, The Christian Science Monitor reports. Masahiro Yamao, a fisheries expert at Hiroshima University’s Graduate School of Biosphere Science, believes the Miyagi proposal is a test case for a larger reform of the fishing industry, which was already suffering from financial troubles and withering fish stocks.
Miyagi officials assert that investment from outside businesses is crucial to revive the industry. “It’s really hard for people in their 60s and 70s to start over again,” said Norimitsu Kobayashi, technical director of the Miyagi Fisheries Recovery Department. Whereas it is considered that large companies could help by taking on local fishers as salaried workers who would then not have to buy their own boats, Yamao considers it a risk.
“The priority for a corporation is profit. If there’s no profit, they leave,” he explained. A recent poll by the Asahi Shimbun reveals that Miyagi residents and even cooperative members are divided on the proposal. There are alternatives to Murai’s approach. Neighbouring Iwate Prefecture will funnel national and prefectural recovery funds through existing cooperatives to help the industry bounce back. Meanwhile, Miyagi residents have devised their own plans, according to The Christian Science Monitor.
In September, about 150 people from Tokyo and other far-off cities convened on a fishing pier in Miyagi Prefecture to attach seed oysters to ropes and let them float in the bay. The visitors each paid some USD 130 to join the community-run business, which will fund boats and other equipment. Investors will eventually be paid back in oysters, scallops and salmon by the 10 fishers and two marketing specialists who own the venture. This is the first business of its kind in Japan, according to company president Hiromi Ito. “Because we have this, we’ll be fine even if big corporations come in,” he said.
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