Fishing Industry in Japan

Being an island nation Japan for thousands of yea...

Being an island nation Japan for thousands of years has enjoyed the sea as its cultural and economic resource. Fishing has been one of Japan’s largest coastal industry and has supported a huge number of the population. The industry has been a source of various marine products to the restaurants and supermarket locally and worldwide. Among these products are sharks, seaweed, squid, tuna, and oyster. The industry fishermen, delivery people, packagers, traders, butchers, air shipping companies, trucking companies and the customers. The delivery process of the fish passes through a dozen of hands and with every exchange the price of the fish goes higher. This is because every business the product goes through, has to earn some profit hence at the end of the exchange the final consumer ends up paying expensively (Hays, n.d.).

Like every other industry, the fishing industry has various challenges. Among the many problems that the Japanese fisheries sector experience natural disaster is the main issue. The fishing industry suffered a significant blow with the earthquake and tsunami that hit the country in March 2011 (Haw & Sullivan, 2013). Fishing villages on the coast of the northeast area were destroyed leading to a 90% destruction of the fishing industry

The industry has also been affected by climate change. Although over-fishing has contributed to low count of fish in the sea, climate change has also contributed a great length to this. The climate change is the global warming which has resulted in increasing in atmospheric temperature and therefore, ice no longer forms in the ocean hence there are no breeding sites for the marine life (Haw & Sullivan, 2013).

            The government has been able to put in place regulation although not so tight to curb these and many other challenges that the industry experience. It has done this successfully and has been able to manage several localized fisheries through Fishery Cooperation Association (FCA) (Haw & Sullivan, 2013). The industry therefore is on the right track of recovery.