Kyoto

International Symposium on Integrated Coastal Management for Marine Biodiversity in Asia, January 14-15, 2010, Kyoto, Japan

C-5 Marine Protected Areas in Japanese Fisheries: Case Studies in Kyoto, Shiretoko and Ise Bay.

Hiroyuki Matsuda1*, Mitsutaku Makino2, Juan Carlos Castilla3, Hiroki Oikawa1, Yasunori Sakurai4, Minoru Tomiyama5

1 Faculty of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University 2 National Research Institute of Fisheries Science, Fisheries Research Agency, 3 Pontificia Universidad Catolica De Chile 4 Faculty of Fisheries, Hokkaido University、Japan 5 Fisheries Division, Aichi Prefecture、Japan *matsuda@ynu.ac.jp

Japan has once played an important role of the international institution for marine protected areas (MPAs). Marine park system was established in Japan after the 1st Conference for World Natural Parks in 1962, Seattle. The first International Conference for Marine Parks was held in 1975, Tokyo, Japan. Despite of it, it is few known MPAs in Japan because fishers and Japan Fisheries Agency do not like to use the term MPAs, rather than fishing ban areas. This is because fishers did not seek legal fishing-ban areas but they did establish fishing-ban areas by themselves. We briefly introduce the institutional history and features of Japanese coastal fishery management, including the past decade’s major legislative developments. Unlike fisheries in modern countries, there is no centralized top-down management in traditional fisheries. After Japan was modernized in mid 1960s, the government attempted to centralize the fisheries institution. However, these attempts resulted in a great deal of confusion and disturbance within fisheries societies; thus, Japan still has a decentralized co-management system involving fishers and the government, and ca.98% of Japanese fishers are artisanal. The transaction costs for fisheries management constitute one of the strongest arguments against top-down management systems. In the co-managed...