Management of the Oyster Fisheries in Japan's Ariake Sea and Maryland's Chesapeake Bay: A Comparison

Abstract

An estuarine fi shery can provide high harvest productivity and economic profi t while supporting a traditional way of life in fi shing communities. Overfi shing may lead to environmental degradation and political confl icts that sometimes may collapse the fi shery. Consequently, appropriate management is required for social, environmental, and economic sustainability. To identify similarities and differences in managing two estuarine fi sheries for oysters (Suminoe oyster, Crassostrea ariakensis, and eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica), we used interviews, fi eld observations, and literature research to compare the oyster industries in the Ariake Sea (Japan) and in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay (USA) from historical, political, sociocultural, and environmental perspectives. These industries have different historical, political, and sociocultural backgrounds. However, the two regions have lost most of their oyster resources due mainly to environmental degradation and failure of environmental management, coupled with overfi shing and disease in Maryland. The situation in Maryland has also been affected by resistance of the oystering communities to aquaculture. In the Ariake region, fi shermen are more amenable to aquaculture but resistant to allowing new participants into the fi shery. Based on our fi ndings, we propose that an estuarine fi shery management plan should include understanding the history of traditional practices and encouraging cooperation among representatives of industry, politics, and science. Introduction Estuarine fi sheries can provide high harvest productivity and economic profi t while supporting customary values and longstanding sociocultural practices (i.e., systems of thoughts and behaviors shared by a group). Often, harvesting, processing, and shipping occur close to fi shermen’s homes, thereby forming resource-oriented communities with a long history of fi shing. Such a history can play an important role in developing sociocultural norms accepted by the community (Acheson, 1981; Paolisso and Dery, 2010). While capture fi sheries’ production in marine regions worldwide has stabilized in recent decades, the marine aquaculture sector has grown (FAO, 2012), producing ~18 million metric tons (t) of fi nfi sh and shellfi sh in 2011. Oysters are a large part of the shellfi sh component of aquaculture. We compared two depleted fi sheries for oysters (Suminoe oyster, Crassostrea ariakensis, and eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica) with different sociocultural backgrounds to determine similarities and differences in their management. We hypothesized that there are common problems, and perhaps solutions, that the industries face in spite of different fi shing practices, history, traditional backgrounds, and legal structures. One industry studied is in the Ariake Sea, a fi shing region in western Japan with a long history of governmentencouraged aquaculture. The other is the Maryland part of Chesapeake Bay where the idea of private aquaculture is becoming accepted by some (but not all) fi shermen after a long history of resistance. In addition to examining fi shing practices, we considered attitudes towards cooperation on the part of fi shermen (Paolisso and Dery,