Coastal Fisheries Seeking to Overcome Difficulties

Abstract

This is a bibliographical paper prepared for this symposium, which introduces excellent practical cases and community activities in various regions.　It also touches on the harsh realities of coastal fisheries, excluding fish farming, and examines the potential and significance of fishing households and fisheries cooperatives in coastal communities for the future.　For this reason, the current situation of fishing villages and operators subject to reforms under the soon-to-be-enforced revised Fisheries Act and other initiatives was reviewed, based on the recently announced results of the 2018 Census of Fisheries and the Statistics on Fisheries and Aquaculture Production, thereby considering the harsh realities of coastal fisheries and fishing villages.　In addition, how coastal fisheries try to overcome difficulties was visualized using the case of oyster farming in Shizugawa Bay, Miyagi Prefecture.

The analysis showed that although there were positive signs for some of the remaining operators, the exhaustion of fishing households, fishing villages, and fisheries cooperatives, on the whole, has become increasingly severe, and there is a concern that coastal fisheries may not withstand the recent policy changes.　It was also pointed out that measures were required to improve the income of fishing households and to establish a balanced fishery employment structure.