Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 10
Changing Coastal Commons in a Sub-Tropical
Island Ecosystem, Yaeyama Islands, Japan
Tomoya Akimichi
Introduction
This chapter explores community-based marine resource management (CBRM) in
a coral reef system in the Yaeyama Islands, part of Okinawa prefecture, located at
the southwestern-most region of Japan. Particular attention is paid to the traditional
small-scale tidal stone weir (TSW) fishing technique used over the past several
hundred years. Although the technique was largely abandoned in the 1970s, and has
been absent from the islands by 2007, one particular community on Ishigaki Island
in Yaeyama has recently recovered the technique as part of a program to enhance
community-based coral reef conservation and resource management. This chapter
seeks to examine the significance of this recent revitalization of traditional TSW
fishing in light of the notion of local commons.
Local commons have recently been acknowledged as an important institution
and a key contributor to collective social capital (Uzawa 2008 ). The co-management
of important public resources serves to sustain these community based assets while
also contributing to social equity and integration. The Japanese concept which
corresponds to local commons is that of sato-umi , literally translated as “the sea of
the village community”. It is defined as the evolving set of environmental and
cultural features - the human ecology - that have traditionally supported Japanese
coastal life. Along with the concept of sato-yama (the traditional Japanese inland
human ecology centering on forest, agriculture and grassland production), sato-umi
has been singled out for special attention in the United Nations' recent millennium
ecosystem sub-global assessment (United Nations University, Institute of Advanced
Studies 2010).
The concept of sato-umi is unusual in that it refers to what is a de facto human
engineered marine environment, one that is repeatedly used and managed by local
community members, and whose productivity also depends on a continuing flow of
substances between forest, river and sea via water. In this regard, it provides a way
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