Coastal Management in the 21st Century

Coastal management in Japan was in the form of individual problem solving. But, as users of the sea diversifies and competition over the use of the sea becomes complex, discussions for a hierarchy of values and a shift to a planned, systematic and comprehensive coastal management are intensifying. And, as for fishing, a drastic review of various systems such as fishing rights, fishery compensations, fishery cooperative associations is necessary for the development of fisheries based on the rational resource management system by the Convention of the Law of the Sea and maintenance of international competitive power. Upon careful consideration of the future of coastal management and fishing industry, the proposals of the Nippon Foundation's the Society for the Study of Ocean Management have important implications.

1. Coastal management, Japan's approach and new trends

Various human activities are performed in waters along the coast. Fishing activity licensed under fishing rights is entitled to the exclusive use of a certain extensive sea area, while such activities as riding personal watercraft or swimming are performed in a limited sea area, in which case the simultaneous use of a certain expanse of sea area is physically impossible. Some activities that have externality can be the cause of industrial wastewater or seawater pollution and may produce an adverse effect on the interest of other people. If one activity performed on the sea interferes with another activity, it is necessary to prioritize these activities. If activities have externality, it is necessary to prevent them from causing external economy (benefits brought to others) or external diseconomy (losses caused to others) or to make ex post adjustments.
With some activities performed in waters along the coast, the supply-demand relationship is left to the market mechanism. Fishery is a typical activity that is performed with much less concern over the supply-demand situation than other sectors of industry. Activities performed to maintain a lighthouse or a jetty do not directly produce exclusive benefits for those performing the activities, and they do not produce products to be distributed in the market. However, a large number of people in general benefit from the service provided by such activities. Objects for which such activities are performed are public properties and quasi-public properties. Who supplies and maintains public and quasipublic properties and how they are supplied and maintained must be determined. Who bears the cost to supply and maintain public and quasi-public properties must likewise be determined.
To allow sea-related human activities to be performed in good order and to have them produce benefits, rules on the supply and maintenance of public and quasi-public properties must be determined, activities must be prioritized, and systems must be established to prevent external diseconomy from occurring and to resolve disputes. The coastal management system (policy) has a primary function to accomplish all these tasks.
In Japan the problems concerning the use of waters along the coast were individually resolved. Cases in which various activities interfered with each other in waters along the coast rarely occurred. Even if they occurred, the interfering situation concerned the same activity being performed, for example, fishing activity. Therefore, disputes were settled relatively easily by dealing with each individual case. As Japan achieved high economic growth, many activities were performed in waters along the coast, and industrial and household wastewater began to pollute the sea, exceeding the self-purification capacity of the sea. As a certain level of economic affluence was achieved, the importance of maintaining a good marine environment was recognized, while people began to spend more leisure time by performing fun activities. The use of the sea, which was once important only to interested parties, is now the concern of people in general, including the concern over the maintenance of a good environment and the use of leisure time. In this situation, coastal management must be examined by comparing the benefit gained from a better environment with economic benefits or the benefit gained from leisure activities with economic benefits, and different social values must be prioritized fairly without being influenced by economic interests.
For people concerned with the coastal management of Japan, what approach should be taken to control activities in waters along the coast is now a matter of primary concern: should problems be examined and resolved individually as practiced in the past, or is it necessary to build a system for making prior adjustments according to plan and resolving disputes systematically based on data and prioritized values? It is now important to verify the actual limitations of the functions of the existing system and to work out improvement measures without sticking too much to the discussion about the limitations of the conventional individual- control methodology. Proposals 2 and 3 made by the Society for the Study of Ocean Management are considered to the first significant step in this direction.

2. Necessity for continuing the discussion about the fishery system

Because fishery has a long history and most interests concerning fishing activities a legal system was introduced to control the activities in waters along the coast, a conflict of interest inevitably occurs between the need for performing new types of activity and the need for performing the fishing activity. If a party wants to use waters along the coast, it pays compensation to a fisherman who is the original user of waters along the coast and licensed under a fishing right in most cases. This way the party obtains the right to use waters along the coast by invalidating the fishing right through pecuniary settlement. This approach taken to transfer the existing right to the sea to a new party has aroused much criticism because the compensation specified by the fishery compensation standard has become estranged from the compensation actually paid and the process of transfer of right remains non-transparent and leaves people with the impression of unfairness. People who want to use the sea for purposes other than fishery are particularly critical of the present situation.
In 1996 the laws on the conservation and control of marine life resources were legislated based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and they were added to the existing fishery system being operated based on the Fisheries Law, the Law for Conservation of Aquatic Resources, and the Fishery Cooperative Union Law, which was established on the mutual aid principle for small-scale fishermen. In this new fishery system, the minister of the national government and each governor of local governments are authorized to determine the catch of each specific fish species, a new aquatic resources control method. Given this background, the Basic Fishery Law was legislated in 2001 to show a new direction of the fishery policy.
The vitalized, internationally competitive fishing industry of Japan is very important from the viewpoint of health promotion and food self-sufficiency for the Japanese people, who have excellent seafood culture. Although the Fisheries Law and the Fishery Cooperative Union Law established as part of the postwar democratization policy of GHQ have contributed greatly to the modernization of fishery, they become disincentives to increasing the efficiency of fishery because they give too high a priority to individuals in granting fishing rights and as a result make it difficult for corporations to operate a large-scale fishery business. It is a matter of national concern to reform the overall fishery system, to achieve the required transparency for fishery compensation, which people outside the fishing industry find non-transparent, and to correct unfair practices from the standpoint of general coastal management and sound development of the fishing industry in the age of resources management.
It is important to take action based on Proposal 4 made by the Society for the Study of Ocean Management. Specific points that I consider important in putting the proposal to practice are as follows:
Entry of corporations to fishery should be facilitated actively by highlighting the requirements for their entry to fishery in relation to the Fisheries Law. With some revisions made in the Fisheries Law in 2001, some improvements were made. Continued efforts must be made to allow corporations to operate fishery and to study various business management approaches for streamlining fishery operations. This will lead to the clarification of fishing rights established as nontransferable rights (see my article in News Letter No. 8), the reconsideration of the fishing right license fee, and the reevaluation of the Fishery Cooperative Union Law which involves some unfair provisions. There are many other points that must be considered. For the fishing industry to proper in the age of resources management, the existing fishery system must be smoothly shifted to a new fishery system in which economic entities with motivation and capability are allowed into the fishing industry and make the fishing industry internationally competitive.