Just transition through “commoning” coastal wetlands in growing and shrinking communities in Japan

Abstract

Coastal wetlands, such as tidal flats, saltmarshes, and mangroves, have provided a variety of ecosystem services to us since human history began. Until around the 1970s, they were often managed as commons, but increasingly they have been privatized or taken into public ownership and destroyed through industrialization and capitalist management strategies, despite the people whose livelihoods depend on fishing these wetlands. However, in recent decades, restoration of coastal wetlands has been happening around the world. This article utilizes the current discussions on commoning—returning privatized or publicly owned resources into community managed ones—and how the restoration of coastal wetlands could bring just transition, beginning with our coastal communities in Japan. The article looks at how local communities with growing populations could adopt past core common management principles, while local communities with shrinking populations consider new approaches. These include informing in-situ and ex-situ people about the multiple benefits of commoning; tightening membership of a new common around extractive resources, while widening it around management tasks; and sharing labor accounts with ex-situ community members. Commoning of coastal wetlands could provide new opportunities not only for local communities to obtain resources, but also for self-governance strategies to achieve just transition for the future.