Fishermen in Japan are safeguarding blue carbon ecosystems such as seaweed beds to restore the environment and bring back marine life

The sea has served Japan as a cultural and economic resource for thousands of years. The Japanese have made heavy use of the ocean, harvesting a host of marine organisms from squid and octopus to tuna, salmon and abalone. However, in recent decades, the ocean has become a resource at risk with the onset of climate change, overfishing and other threats. These have resulted in declining catches, environmental changes and changes in species distribution, while an aging workforce and a shortage of successors in the fishing industry are drawing increasing concerns.

Tomokazu Kawabata, a set-net fisherman in Yamagawa, Ibusuki city, Kagoshima prefecture, and Shozo Kesamaru, who free dives for abalone offKaratsu city in Saga prefecture, are all too familiar with the problems facing Japan’s fishing industry. Based in southern Japan, both fishermen enjoy the ocean’s resources and have long been concerned by the changes they’ve seen.

“Sea temperatures have been rising gradually, and this has changed the distribution of marine species,” Kawabata told WF. “For example, over the past 10 years, fishermen in Hokkaido have been unable to catch autumn salmon, which return to the Hokkaido coast to spawn in the autumn or early winter. Meanwhile, Japanese yellowtail fishing grounds have changed dramatically, and Hokkaido, which previously registered next to no catches, is now seeing significant hauls. The problem is not that fishermen can’t catch what they used to catch. Rather, they are catching species that they have never caught before, and they have no culture or history of eating them, so they ship them elsewhere.”

“I’ve been free diving since I was 18 years old, and environmental changes off Saga prefecture used to be gradual,” said Kesamaru. “However, they are now happening more quickly. With the environment changing to this extent, and to ensure survival, fishermen need a framework to do what is appropriate for the environment. The balance of the ecosystem has been disrupted. We need to bring back and maintain it while protecting the ocean as best as we can.”