We have the common goal of expanding consumption of the world’s marine products.
So said Norwegian Minister of Fisheries Lisbeth Berg-Hansen, 49, on a visit to the areas devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake. Norway is continuing to support to recovery efforts for fisheries damaged in the tsunami. This extends beyond financial assistance, and includes attempts to pass on the nation’s wealth of knowledge regarding resource control and management. It is doing so in the belief that the recovery of Japan’s fishing industry will also be of benefit to Norway in the long run.
The scars of the tsunami are still vivid around the fishing port of Ishinomaki, one of Japan’s leading fishery hubs.
Debris has been cleared away from the Great East Japan Earthquake, but damage to the land has been so severe that little progress has been made in rebuilding port facilities and other infrastructure.
In November, Minister Berg-Hansen visited Ishinomaki.
The functionality of onshore facilities has only been restored to 30 percent of what it was prior to the disaster,” a seafood processing company executive told Berg-Hansen.
“As things stand, fish cannot be unloaded here.
Norway’s public and private sectors have been leading recovery efforts for Japan’s fisheries in the disaster-hit areas.
So far, 500,000 Norwegian krone (7.5 million yen, or $89,770) has been donated to purchase new seaweed cultivation nets and other equipment to assist Ishinomaki’s seaweed farming association.
A conference was also held that brought representatives from Norwegian fisheries equipment manufacturers to Minamisanriku and Sendai to discuss rebuilding efforts with local citizens affected by the quake and tsunami.
The springboard for these activities was a local industry rebuilding project set up after the disaster by Miyagi University. Norway became involved after a delegation, including Miyagi University Vice President Kazunuki Ohizumi, 63, visited various embassies in Tokyo seeking assistance.
The university and Norway had the same viewpoint regarding moving forward to help revive fisheries in the region–there would be no point in simply restoring it to its former condition. This is because the fisheries industry in the Tohoku region had already been in a crisis mode before the devastating earthquake and tsunami.
The production volume of Japan’s fishing and aquaculture industries is continuing to shrink, and there is a deep-seated belief that overfishing is to blame.
The average annual earnings for a family making a living from coastal fishing has plateaued at just over 2 million yen, and about half of the workforce is over 60.
In addition, the industry is losing around 10,000 workers every year. This declining trend has been particularly strong in the prefectures of Miyagi and Iwate, where tsunami damage was substantial. That means merely returning the industry to its previous state will not solve its inherent problems.
From a global perspective, fish and shellfish have grown in popularity and fisheries industries have entered a boom period. With the exception of Japan, many advanced fishing nations are pushing ahead with advanced mechanization and comprehensive resource management.
One such nation is Norway, where it is not unusual for fisheries workers to earn between 20 million and 30 million yen annually, and the industry is also popular with young people.
If we don’t rebuild industry in the disaster-hit areas, isolated areas will become even more isolated, Ohizumi said. To prevent that from happening, structural reform is necessary across the board for primary industries.
He said Norway can be used as a model for fisheries reform.
It’s important for fisheries operators in the disaster-hit areas to turn their attentions outward,” said Keisuke Nakayama, 45, Senior Market Adviser of the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Tokyo. “We want to help them to do so.
Some seafood processing plants that suffered damage in the disaster handled mackerel and other varieties of fish from Norway, so the restoration of Japan’s fisheries industry is by no means irrelevant to it. From a long-term perspective, if Norway can work together with a revived Japan, they can work out strategies to promote the global consumption of fish.
This idea gave birth to a study tour in which young fisheries workers from the disaster-hit areas were officially invited to Norway to observe the state of its streamlined fishing industry.
Fifty-five candidates who applied to an open call were whittled down to 16 participants by reviewing dissertations they submitted. They also underwent prior training so they could get some hands-on experience, and departed from Narita Airport on Sept. 17. Their excursion took in seafood processing plants, farms, and shipyards in Norway’s fisheries centers of Ålesund and Måløy.
Most of the Japanese participants were stunned by Norway’s modern systems, such as waste-cutting processing lines, ocean-bound auctions carried out over the Internet, exacting resource management and a system that determined fishing quotas for each vessel.
I was amazed by how thoroughly they kept track of the freshness of the fish, said Toshiaki Takahashi, 32, who works in seafood processing in Ishinomaki city. It made me want to make kamaboko (boiled fish paste sausage) with Norwegian fish someday.
After returning to Japan, the participants received post-tour training and put together proposals that included the introduction of resource management strategies, mechanization of fish markets and export promotions for fish and seafood. They will continue to keep in touch and think of ways to promote their local fishing industries.
Subsequently, an attempt is being made to keep the relationship with Norway alive at home in Japan. Hideki Takahashi, who farms and processes scallops and oysters in Minamisanriku, is moving forward with a plan to establish a sea urchin breeding venture with a Norwegian aquafarming company he came into contact with on the study tour.
Takahashi’s processing plant was swept away by the tsunami, but he has succeeded in restoring production to around 60 percent of what it was before the disaster.
I want to use the disaster as an opportunity to create a system inspired by Norwegian methods that’s suited to Japan, he said.
The Asahi Shimbun Company