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Fishery management in Japan

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Ecological Research

Abstract

There are few legal marine protected areas in Japan rather than fishing-ban areas. Fishers did not seek legal fishing-ban areas but they did establish fishing-ban areas by autonomous bases. We briefly introduce the institutional history and features of Japanese coastal fishery management, including the past decade’s major legislative developments. Japan still has a decentralized co-management system involving fishers and the government, and ca. 98% of Japanese fishers are artisanal. There are several successful cases of coastal fisheries management in Japan. However, offshore industrial fisheries have problems in Japan. We compare coastal fisheries co-management between Japan and Chile. We finally discuss the possibility of improvement for Japanese fisheries.

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Acknowledgments

We express our sincere thanks to Drs. D. Cooper, N. Hayashi, Y. Hiyama, H. Ijima, Y. Katsukawa, T. Nakashizuka, Y. Takeuchi, and A. Yatsu for valuable comments. We also thank anonymous reviewers for valuable comments. This work is partly supported by a grant from the Global Environment Research Fund (H-092) by the Ministry of the Environment, Japan, the Global COE (E-03) by MEXT, Japan, and the Pew Marine Conservation Fellowship Grant to H. M.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Japan

    Hiroyuki Matsuda

  2. National Research Institute of Fisheries Science, Fisheries Research Agency, Yokohama, Japan

    Mitsutaku Makino

  3. Chita Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Office, Aichi Prefectural Government, Aichi, Japan

    Minoru Tomiyama

  4. Centre for Advanced Studies in Ecology and Biodiversity (CASEB) & Departamento de Ecologia, F. Ciencias Biologicas, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Casilla 114-D, Santiago, Chile

    Stefan Gelcich & Juan Carlos Castilla

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  1. Hiroyuki Matsuda
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  2. Mitsutaku Makino
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  3. Minoru Tomiyama
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  4. Stefan Gelcich
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  5. Juan Carlos Castilla
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Correspondence to Hiroyuki Matsuda.

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Matsuda, H., Makino, M., Tomiyama, M. et al. Fishery management in Japan. Ecol Res 25, 899–907 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-010-0748-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-010-0748-5

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