Letters from Majuro
Japan's Shocking Retreat
Tokyo Withdraws From Fisheries Conservation Talks.
One of the more bizarre developments in the region is the Japanese government’s pull-out from the fisheries conservation and management treaty process. For three years the Japanese government actively engaged in the multi-national negotiating process to develop a treaty to manage tuna stocks both within island nations’ 200 mile exclusive economic zones and on the high seas. And it was a truly multi-national process involving about 25 nations in and bordering the Pacific.
There were conflicting interests, as would be expected when island countries get in the same room with the distant water fishing nations. But everyone, even Japan, had put a priority on the need to come up with a management mechanism to prevent the destruction of the Pacific’s rich tuna industry — a disaster that, in the absence of conservation programs, has befallen numerous other fisheries globally.
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Then, at the final negotiating session late last year aimed at approving a management convention, Japan yanked the government team that had been handling the negotiations for the previous three years, and instead sent a “negotiating” team with swords drawn and pistols loaded that refused to agree to anything, even issues that had earlier been approved. Then this year, Japan decided to boycott follow-up sessions that are attempting to iron out details of implementing the new management process.
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We need only look to other fishing grounds that were wiped out by commercial fishermen to know that the Pacific, despite its apparent wealth of tuna, won’t be immune from this problem forever. To many in the region, Japan’s behavior regarding tuna conservation and management is truly shocking. If the main players in the region are able to come together to painstakingly develop an innovative tuna conservation program, it’s hard to understand why Japan can’t see that it is in its long-term interests to play ball with the rest of the region.
