Sustainable Fisheries and Global Change: The Cases of Shiretoko Peninsula and Tokyo Bay, Japan

During the past 15 years, the general view of resources management, such as in the case of fisheries, has been experiencing a paradigm shift, moving from a classic case of the tragedy of the commons to a more holistic management approach, with emphasis on the role of the human factor within the system. It is now widely accepted that traditional fisheries management has proven unsuccessful, not only in ecological, but also in socioeconomic terms. During the past fifteen years, academic interest has turned to the local level, recognising its potential to turn this narrative shift from a theoretical approach into reality. It is widely known that there have been multiple cases of local communities which have initiated conservation activities in their respective areas of inhabitation, under different circumstances, but quite often with astounding results. This paper, through the cross-examination of a successful and a not so successful case, attempts to explore factors that contribute towards the fruition of the objectives set during the initiation of community initiatives. The first examined case is the Shiretoko World Natural Heritage Site, where local initiatives transformed the area into a conservation spot, which was later nominated as World Natural Heritage. This case is particularly interesting as it is all built upon the notion of stakeholder participation in the decision-making processes with extensive collaboration among the users’ groups. The comparison is done with the Tokyo Bay case, where, despite the substantial efforts of the local fishermen, the marine environment did not manage to recover from the aftereffects of extensive land reclamation.