6 October 2018
JAPANESE
Japan's "sustainable use fundamentalism" is nonsense
What is sustainable use?
Japan says "Sustainable use" at every opportunity in the context of whaling.
However, does the concept of "sustainable use" advocated by Japan really matches the actual situation of Japanese fisheries or uses of wildlife?
Refer to the following chart.
A. is countries that operate "The principle of sustainable use" with the correct meaning as "Do not use non-sustainably".
They can be said to be exemplary advanced countries of marine resource management.
B. is countries that states to eliminate both non-sustainable use and non-use.
It is wonderful to go through the principle, but that is very strange fundamentalism.
As a matter of practice, it is impossible to exhaust all available biological resources.
If you try to fulfill the principle faithfully ignoring both profitability and market capacity, a huge amount of food disposal will occur.
It is just a waste of resources, a waste of life. It is unreasonable to prioritize "sustainable use" for everything.
C. is countries that only use resources without considering sustainability.
In other words, they are countries that do not have the right to hold a slogan of "sustainable use".
Well, which of the three cases, A., B., and C. applies to Japan?
If you know somewhat about the problems of Japanese fisheries, you will agree that Japan's current situation is far from A., the ideal fishery developed country.
Fortunately, Japan is likely not to be a country dominated by terrible fundamentalism as B. But unfortunately, the closest case to Japan is like C.
47% of 78 stocks of 48 fish species, that JFA: Japan Fisheries Agency conducts the assessment, is low level. This situation has not changed for more than 20 years.
Half of the main commercial fishery target fish in Japan's coastal seas have been the exhausting status for many years.
It is obvious that Japan is far behind other countries, both pro-whaling countries such as Norway and Iceland and anti-whaling countries such as the US, Australia, and New Zealand, in marine resource management.
In FAO's fisheries white paper in 2018, Japan is the only country in the world that shows a significant reduction of more than 10% in predicting future trends in fisheries resources.
In fact, Japan is a backward country of the sustainable fisheries. It behaves as if it is "an exemplar" despite it is "a failure".
- The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018 | FAO
How about converting from unused to used?
Regarding bycatch, it has also been pointed out that not only damage to wild animals such as seabirds, sea turtles, and whales but also a lot of fish on the net are discarded without being used.
Educational activities to eat fish being thrown despite being able to eat are being carried out in Japan, but it remains only a small part.
80% of Japan's total fish catch is occupied by only 18 species.
Although fish inhabiting Japan's surroundings is about 4,000 species as far as we know, it is only less than 10% that is being used.
Furthermore, only a small part of them are subject to management, and most species have no information on resource status.
In fact, Japan does not regularly use every kind evenly.
Nonetheless, Japan continues to insist stubbornly that it should not be unused only for whales.
Is not whale only used in Japan?
In this way, Japan has no qualification to state the sustainable use of fishery resources.
However, there is room for consideration as to whether whales should be used preferentially.
If the utilization of a certain resource is unsustainable, we can grasp because catch continues to decrease, but it is not easy to compare how much room, which can be developed, each species has.
But ICR: Institute of Cetacean Research provided useful indicators; "Ecosystem model".
-Development of an ecosystem model of the western North Pacific | IWC-SC/J09/JR21, ICR
First of all, I point out the problems of the ecosystem model itself that was launched to justify research whaling under the JARPN II Review. So-called "puppet scholars" for Japan's whaling explain its incentive as follows.
- To examine whether ecosystem management by whaling is possible because it is necessary to deal with the sharp decline in fish catch in Japan
- To investigate competition between marine mammals and fisheries
- For International recognition of EAF: Ecosystem Approach Fisheries
1. is a logically mistake at all. The cause of the depletion of fishery resources is already clear.
The main cause is overfishing, and there are other factors such as environmental destruction of seaweed bed or coral reef due to pollution and development, climate change, and regime shift.
The first thing "to deal with the sharp decline in fish catch in Japan" is to stop overfishing.
2.; The hypothesis of the Conflict between fisheries and whales is criticized as non-scientific from inside and outside.
Ecosystem Approach also come under question by fisheries researchers.
Toshio Katsukawa, one of the famed Japanese fisheries scientists says; "Because the result changes greatly depending on the parameter setting, the ecosystem model is not trustworthy. So we should use robust RMP with a single species."
ICR's studies have many other problems.
It does not include orca, an important predator species for both whales and fish.
And also it does not reflect the change of fish species by regime shift and the accompanying change in the ratio of prey species of whales.
In addition, as it is a multispecies model, it is meaningless to increase accuracy only for certain whale species, so research whaling is indispensable for building ecosystem models.
Well, see the next table I made based on the papers on the ecosystem model.
The left side of Table 1 is the quotation from the primary source and the right half is the value calculated by me based on it.
P is production (biological reproduction). If this figure is high, it means that the amount of production (fisheries yield) that can be caught is high while suppressing the impact on resources.
Q is consumption (biological food consumption). It is related to food damage, "damage to fisheries yield by marine vermin".
Though it is supposed to evaluate the proportion of catch target species of fisheries in the prey structure.
It is reasonable to select the target species for the stomach content survey based on P and Q.
C/P and C/Q expresses "extent of exploitation" relative to production and food damage.
This means that the lower the figure is the less used sufficiently for production size or influence of food damage.
In other words, fishery exploitation is delayed despite there is the potential.
Fisheries budgets should be given priority to resource research and exploratory fishing targeting these species.
The numbers to the right of each item of Q/B, P, Q, C/P, C/Q are rank among 33 group except for detritus.
By the way, if C/P is the same as or higher than EE, it means that the fishery has robbed share from all of the predators.
Then, it can not be called an ecosystem control type fishery that takes into consideration relations between species.
The following Table 2 is sorted Table 1 according to rank.
The parts painted in red are ranked higher than the three species captured by JARPN II (minke whales, Bryde's whales, sei whales).
Three whale species, with JFA considering commercial whaling in mind, are less than 19th in all items.
When targeting all ecosystem constituent species, the ranks of large cetaceans will decline even more.
Indeed, it may be difficult to use small plankton such as phytoplankton and copepods, some benthic animals for the industry.
However, there is ample room for research.
It will surely contribute to the solution of the food problem in Japan and in the world by turning all the subsidies that have been invested and would be invested in research whaling.
In particular, there is a possibility that lanternfish, item 17 of table 1 and mid-deep sea squid, item 22 of table 1 can be established as a fishery even on a commercial basis.
Lanternfish are distributed in the middle deep sea layer around the world and lives in so many as to mistake the ocean floor.
Mid-deep sea squid occupies a considerable part of hundreds of millions of tons of fish whales are eating.
The catch of both groups is equal to zero despite being larger by three or four orders of magnitude than whales as compared with production.
Moreover, Lanternfish is competing with major catch target species such as Pacific saury for bait. Considering biomass the impact is much greater than minke whales.
Although lanternfish is relatively researched as fish not covered by the commercial fishery, it is not said that the influence to fisheries has been clarified.
In some areas of Japan, lanternfish that hang trawlnet is used for dried fish. It is the same as whale meat diet that JFA admits that it is a regional culture.
Mid-deep sea squid is considered to be unsuitable for edible because it contains a lot of ammonium chloride in the body, but sharks and rays with ammonia odor as same are edible due to the development of pretreatment and preservation techniques.
It is contrary to "sustainable use fundamentalism" that those resources are not used despite being abundant.
It is also unreasonable from the viewpoint of sustainable use not to give more subsidies such as research expenses and food culture promotion expenses for lanternfish and mid-deep sea squid than whales.
JFA should promote the use of lanternfish and mid-deep sea squid in order to preserve the culture of "use until nothing is left" as it is almost abandoned if it has caught in a net in most areas.
It immediately should establish Institute of Lanternfish Research and Institute of Mid-deep sea Squid Research, pass all 5 billion subsidies annually for research whaling, and distribute for school meals nationwide.
For the production of Antarctic whale meat, Japan has to build a factory ship investing more than 10 billion yen (90 million USD) and to pay large expenses such as fuel cost.
Whale meat is tasteless and shunned by consumers, so the industry has been all agog for measures to suppress liquid in meat and improve the taste.
Thereby, ultra-low temperature freezers and new thawing equipment have been introduced, which further boosts the price and environmental burden.
On the other hand, lanternfish and mid-deep sea squid are caught in the near waters and can be offered cheaply to consumers using traditional processing and cooking methods.
They are far more sustainable and earth-friendly than whale meat.
The concentration of heavy metals in lanternfish of deep-sea fish is higher than that of surface fish.
However, the concentration of organic chlorine and heavy metals in lanternfish are much lower than them in toothed whales which is edible in Japan and it can be said to be relatively safe.
Which Antarctic ocean biological resources should humans use? Whales? Or seals, penguins?
Then, let's apply the concept of Extent of sustainable exploitation to the Antarctic Ocean.
The population estimate values of fin whales, sei whales, and sperm whales are not agreed on IWC-SC.
Catch quota of Antarctic minke whales is the value of provisional calculation in RMP, that of seals is acceptable amount under CCAS: Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals, those of Patagonian toothfish and krill are the limit quota under CCAMLR (total of each area).
The parts painted in yellow are superior to those of fin whale, JARPA II target species in each item.
Table 4 is research results on predators krill consumption in the Scotia Sea by CCAMLR: Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. Biomass, consumption, and consumption/biomass of whales are all less than the other krill predators.
The number is comparable to the total number of other pinniped species, even if it is estimated to be small. The staple food of the crab-eater seal is Antarctic krill. The amount of Antarctic krill eaten by the crab-eater seal is about 160 million tons, and it is now the largest consumer of Antarctic krill.
The above is an explanation about crab-eater seal by National Institute of Polar Research.
Masayuki Komatsu, who was once in charge of negotiations at IWC, called Antarctic minke whale as "sea cockroach" and aroused criticism.
If Antarctic minke whale would be "sea cockroach", crab-eater seal is "sea flea".
Production of crab-eater seal is still higher under overestimating of population and PB of Antarctic minke whale and underestimating of those of club-eater seal.
It is certainly "resources" to be discussed before Antarctic minke whale from any viewpoints as the amount, production, competition with krill fishing, management for recovering large whales.
Consumption of Southern elephant seals, Weddell seals, and Antarctic fur seals is larger than that of fin whales.
Production of Southern elephant seals and Weddell seals is also larger than that of humpback whales.
It has been only half a century since the commercial exploitation of Antarctic minke whales started.
Conversely, Japanese had been using whales and seals in the same way at the Prehistoric times.
It is an obvious double standard that eating Antarctic minke whale is essential culture but eating club-eater seal is not so.
Consumption of chinstrap penguins and Macaroni penguins is larger than that of fin whales.
King penguin, Adelie penguin, Gentoo penguin, and chinstrap penguin is listed as LC on the IUCN red list.
Although rockhopper penguin and Macaroni penguin are listed as VU on the IUCN red list, those population of mature individuals is about 2.5 million and 12.6 million, so JFA can calculate tens of thousands of catch quotas of each penguin species with RMS or PBR.
The weight of a chinstrap penguin is twice that of a broiler and that of a king penguin is 8 times.
JWA: Japan Whaling Association will make penguin meat easy to appeal as healthy diets.
If Japan insists that; "It is Yakitori: Japanese style skewered chicken culture!", the world should quite helpless.
Production of seabirds other than penguins is also very large.
It exceeds that of Antarctic minke whale even applying a modest numerical value of PB = 0.1. "Yakitori culture" is acceptable.
Patagonian toothfish is concerned about overfishing by IUU fishery.
However, it is not caught up to the limits of the quota set based on strict regulations.
It proves that sustainable fishery will not be established without a strict monitoring system corresponding to RMS.
Nonetheless, there is still enough extent of exploitation compared to Antarctic minke whales.
It is said that there is an enormous number of squids in the Antarctic Sea, but it is unused initial resource conditions.
Not to use it is against "sustainable use fundamentalism" which Japan employ.
Actually, capturing of birds and mammals on the continent is prohibited in principle by the Antarctic Treaty.
The capture allowance of seals is set under CCAS, but "hunting of seals in the water" is prohibited.
When the two treaties are combined, it become totally impossible to capture seals.
However, lethal research as research whaling under ICRW: International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling is permitted.
If lethal research same as Japan's research whaling is indispensable for elucidating the Antarctic marine ecosystem and exploring sustainable use, we would have to carry out "research penguin hunting" and "research seal hunting" and kill thousands to tens of thousands of penguins and seals every year.
Strange "fundamentalism" that is imposed only on whales
By the way, northern fur seal is listed as VU in the IUCN Red List, but they live in more than 1 million, which is far larger than Antarctic minke whales, the northern hemisphere and the production is double that of minke whales.
It is also said to compete with the fishery as well as whales.
However, there is a law called "the Enforcement regulations of hunting of sea otter and fur seal" that was enacted more than a hundred years ago in Japan.
Capture of sea otters and fur seals is banned in Japan under the law in principle regardless of scientific grounds.
Moreover, the moratorium is "for the time being" and no deadline is set.
Capture for scientific research is permitted but research fur seal hunting to capture hundreds every year and sell meat like as research whaling has not been conducted.
There is another law in Japan called "Act on Protection of Cultural Properties".
Some of the wildlife are designated as natural monuments along with the cultural property such as buildings, art objects, historical sites, landscapes.
For example, it includes deer in Nara, macaque in Pen. Shimokita ore Mt. Minoo, Japanese serow nationwide, finless porpoise in Hiroshima, crane in Izumi, whooper swan in Kominato, sea bream in Tainoura etc.
Those animals are designated based on academic value, which is unrelated to scientific criteria of extinction risk, by ACA: Agency for Cultural Affairs and capture is prohibited in principle.
Capturing nominated for investigation and extermination also need the permission of ACA, not of MOE: Ministry of the Environment or MAFF: Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Although Some animal of natural monument exterminated due to damage to agricultural crops, procedures and standards are different from the same or different species which are not designated as natural monument.
all of the animals designated as natural monument are not used commercially and not considered for future commercial use even though it is listed as LC in the red list of IUCN or Japan.
Though, it is the same as whaling in the high sea that there are no enterprises that offer entry to commercial catching.
Japan's whaling of Antarctic minke whale Sanctuary in Australia and New Zealand is exactly like that swans migrating to Kominato are shot and killed by an Australian hunter, who claims to "eat a bird at Christmas is our traditional culture", and are sold as meat as soon as them left the scope of Japan's EEZ.
I will ask again. What is true sustainable use?
It should be to use coastal fishing resources which research and development are not advanced, have more abundant and more reproducible rate, more likely to have the effect of suppression of food damage, are not contravene important cultures such as "local production and local consumption", are low about environmental burden, not lead to serious diplomatic conflicts, and not spend unnecessary public money for that purpose.
I do not think that it is right to kill a large number of penguins, seals, lanternfish or swan to act up to "sustainable use fundamentalism".
Crab-eater seals, chinstrap penguins, and also krill are concerned about climate change same as Antarctic minke whales.
If humans start fishing exploitation of lanternfish and mid-deep sea squid on a large scale, many predator species such as large fish, seabirds, pinniped, and whales are greatly affected.
It is the true concept of "sustainable use" that development of species with many blanks of information is carefully thoughtful.
So steady research should be carried out all the more to clarify the ecology of species not covered by commercial use including fish that have been discarded.
Of course, the top priority of Japanese fishery policies is to stop the overfishing in the sea off Japan and regain a rich sea.
All the whaling measure budget, which become just drag on sustainable fisheries, should be diverted for that.
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