| 8. Economics and Social Science |
| 8e. Roles of fisheries systems |
In Asian countries, the role of communities in fisheries is indispensable, and decisions are often considered within the context of community-based management. However, other fisheries communities are not as well organized and government administration is similarly ineffective. In this sub-session, we will discuss problems associated with the organization of fisheries communities. In Japan, for example, most fisheries communities are organized by fisheries cooperatives as well as local governments. These communities are also united as a national federation of fisheries cooperatives. These fisheries cooperative system benefits fishermen in various ways, including marketing, facilitating the supply and rental of equipment, the provision of credit, insurance and guidance services, and as a fisheries management body in conjunction with governments. However, since both the catches of coastal fisheries and the number of fishermen in Japan are declining, the Fisheries Federation faces difficulties in promoting Japanese coastal fisheries. In this sub-session, problems associated with fisheries cooperatives will be discussed.
Marine ecosystems and fisheries resources are often described as commons, and their overexploitation as an inevitable tragedy. However, in many coastal areas in the world, traditional, historical or formal rights systems have emerged to manage fishery resources or ecosystem services, and avoid the tragedy. One form of those rights systems is property rights, such as state rights (res publicae), common property (res communes), private property (res privatae), etc. Another form of rights systems is use rights. Use rights pertain to exclusive utilization or rights of access, and are distinguished from property rights by non-ownership of the resources/ecosystems. As a type of use rights, this sub-session focuses upon the Territorial Use Rights in Fisheries (TURFs) proposed by Francis T. Christy Jr. TURFs basically allocate a specified area of the ocean to a single user, usually a group, and the group in turn allocates use rights to members of the group. Therefore, TURFs are often viewed as a way to incorporate local communities to the fisheries co-management system, and to derive equitable way of allocating ecosystem services from the area. Also, the special nature of TURFs can give important insights to marine ecosystem conservation measures, when combined with the Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), for example. Especially, the roles and duties of the users in ecosystem conservation can be clarified via TURFs. This sub-session also discusses the socio-economic and bio-economic aspects of spatial nature of TURFs in fisheries/ecosystem management. |
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