I've been keen to spend time in Japan for a long time since my time on Japanese fishing boats in the 1980s in Argentina, and my exposure to a different type of literature after reading Yukio Mishima’s work, and, of course, the culture surrounding tuna, which I have been exposed to since I shifted to the Pacific over 30 years ago.
Following my appearance in a documentary on Japanese national TV (NHK), which performed well, I took the opportunity to visit Japan to explore work opportunities and further research topics for documentaries.
I also took the opportunity to explore its domestic fisheries in the Islands of the Seto Sea, a region I had always been eager to visit, and (somehow) to speak with its fishermen, and so I did.
The area is remote (for Japan standards), and the only way to travel from island to island is by a few bridges and local ferries. Once on the islands, I visited the ports in my favourite mode of transport: my bicycle.
A bicycle enables you to observe places at the pace of a butterfly and engage with people in a non-intrusive way.
This blog reflects the personal lessons I've learned, which in no way should be seen as more than my own perspective, and I could be entirely wrong. I did not have the opportunity to speak with people involved in the sustainability movement there; I mostly spoke with individuals in fishing villages, those working in restaurants, and at local pensions (Ryokan).
The first thing to note was the decline in the domestic fishery's output, but this is not due to a lack of fish (in fact, I was surprised by the schools of fish visible from the ferries); mainly, it is a result of a lack of fishers.
The fishery was centred on small fishing boats, operated mainly by owner/operators who supplied the islands themselves and nearby cities…
Yet many of the islands had gradually depopulated, and fishermen were simply getting old and had no family to carry on the business.
You see many derelict small fishing boats that have not been used in a long time, with very few of them featuring an old man struggling to unload his catch.
Many of the fishing villages I cycle through look pretty empty, with shut houses and schools closed due to a lack of students. This is very contrasting with what you see in the big cities.
To my surprise, I was recognised a couple of times from the documentary, which then allowed me to discuss fisheries in general and their views on sustainability.
This was eye-opening for me; the views were that sustainability and conservation are essential to continue fishing because it is fundamental to national food and culture, and that fisheries must serve as an economic catalyst for many of the villages I cycled through.
This contrasted with my general view of Western conservationism, which is quite protectionist, where the role of the conservationist is to “protect” the weak nature, a somewhat imperialistic approach.
Perhaps the Western tradition is rooted in Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment thought, which traditionally separates humans from nature. Conservation (from this perspective) often involves protecting nature from humans and by humans… as they can only be heroes or villains.
It showed me that the Western approach emphasises science-based, private rights-based quotas, marine protected areas, and enforcement. A focus on biodiversity and habitat conservation is often adversarial (industry vs. regulators vs. conservationists vs. big-scale vs. small-scale vs. recreational, etc.), essentially pitting everyone against each other.
It seemed to me that Japan’s approach emphasises resource use within long-standing community traditions (e.g., satoumi), and management often involves self-regulation and cooperative fishing rights; it appears to focus less on banning use and more on maintaining sustainable use.
Or, as I was told, Western conservation focuses on preservation, while here they focus on coexistence.
Of course, things are never as straightforward as one might like them to be, nor must I be the only one to see this, so after a bit of research, I found this nice paper, “Japanese View of Nature: Discursive Tradition, Its Problems and Implications for Food Studies” that explains the origin and problems of this approach.
And, of course, many academic works critique Western or global conservation as culturally imperialistic or colonial in nature; I’ve written not so much about the conservation area itself, but rather about the ecolabel industry that has emerged from it.
Of course, this is far from a thorough exploration of the topic, as I am definitely not qualified to delve deeply into this field... but just some thoughts (I enjoy thinking) from my experience doing something I have long wanted to do, as it combined exploring Japan’s inland sea, talking to fishermen, viewing things from a different perspective, and cycling.