Bycatch Issue Ignored in Japan

Japan is known to be one of the major fishing countries. They are the 5th largest fishery country in the world. The seafood there is amazing, such as tunas and porgies as it is also where the sushi originated. However, they also have a problem.


Due to such a large industry size and loose regulation on fishery gears, such as bottom trawling and stationary net, bycatch is still happening among them, and it is killing so many different species of marine organisms, such as sharks and dolphins. And worse is that they don't do any actions to make a change for the sake of reducing bycatch and saving these animals, which are significant potentially for marine ecosystems as apex predators. Because of that, it is not rare to see those marine organisms dying from fishery bycatch, ranging from Hammerheads, Makos, and even Dall’s porpoise. Japan is my home country, and because I felt like I should make a move about this ignored issue, I determined that posting on Instagram and talking about this would be at least something to spread awareness of this major problem in Japanese fishery. 




    This was mainly targeted for those, who are enthusiastic about nature conservation, such as the ocean, on Instagram. I also added a Japanese translation in order to spread the ignored issue to the Japanese people. I created an Instagram page with the title “Ignored by Japanese Bycatch” because the main content was about spreading awareness of how serious the bycatch and regulation problem in Japan is and how it is abandoned by the government. I used some photographs of abandoned kills from bycatch involving sharks and dolphins from the internet in order to emphasize what animals are killed by the bycatch problem in Japan. I also implemented factual information from Japanese Fishery Agency, research papers, and so on. This is when an idea from digital environmental organization from Pezzurro and Cox (2017) came in handy for supplementing the concept further. Through photographs of the kills and addition of some facts from the references, I tried to amplify the volume and pathos in the content. 



In other words, Japan still gains various bycatch, including sharks, dolphins, and sea turtles, because of weak regulations on fishing methods, such as bottom trawl, stationary nets, gillnets, lack of strong species and quotas limit on bycatch, and so on. This needs improvement, and to make that happen, actions need to be taken immediately!



Reference


Author, N. (2009, April 16). 40% of marine catch called unintentional. The Japan Times. Retrieved December 12, 2022, from https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2009/04/16/national/40-of-marine-catch-called-unintentional/

Japanese fishery meets challenge to reduce bycatch from World's oceans (part one)｜jfs Japan for Sustainability. JFS Japan for Sustainability. (2012, December). Retrieved December 12, 2022, from https://www.japanfs.org/en/news/archives/news_id032509.html


ライター:Arichamp. (2020, March 17). 知って、シェアして、混獲問題。. チャリツモ. Retrieved December 12, 2022, from https://charitsumo.com/news/8884

勝川俊雄公式サイト Katsukawa. (2011, February 17). 日本のサメ漁は、どうして非難されているの？. Return to 勝川俊雄公式サイト index. Retrieved December 12, 2022, from https://katukawa.com/?p=3942




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Curing Plant Blindness, an Insight into our Environment

Image
Plant blindness , an inability to see or notice plants in one's environment. This deficit in plant recognition was first coined in 1998 by American botanists, James Wandersee and Elisabeth Schussler. Despite making up about 80% of the biomass on Earth, forces such as our increasing time spent behind screens and urbanization have continued to push this trend. People are often overlooking plants as living organisms, alongside animals, leading to an underappreciation of plants. They're underrepresented in education, even in bio-heavy majors, and limit the future interest in the plant sciences and conservation efforts. Why should we care about plants? They're an important connection to the environment and provide people with our basics needs and numerous ecosystem services. They provide the oxygen that we breath, act as sources of natural products to household products and medicines that we use, and give us nutrition. The bread and cereal we consume daily are made from grains, ...
Read more

Say No to More Plastic

Image
Plastic consumption is increasing and wreaking havoc on the environment as it breaks down in ecosystems and spreads microplastics all over the world. Microplastics are defined as pieces of plastic debris that are less than five millimeters long. These tiny plastic particles are often found in the guts of marine animals and there are major concerns about human consumption of these microplastics when we eat seafood. We know little about the potential harm of microplastics in our bodies and research is still being done to analyze the effects of microplastic consumption.  Plastic generation in 2018 was 35.7 million tons in the United States alone with 4.20 million tons being attributed to just plastic bags. Plastic is shockingly unrecyclable as most materials are made out of mixed plastics, rather than just one type, making it nearly impossible for recycling facilities to break them down; less than 10 percent of plastics are actually recycled. Most plastic waste goes to landfills where...
Read more

Propellers Spinning Out Of Control, An Environmental Campaign

Image
The Issue:❌❓❗ A lack of policy and boating restrictions for preventative strike devices has led to an increase in environmental harm and many marine life deaths.  Design/Methods:💭 I created an educational pamphlet that was distributed on social media in an effort to educate the public on the issue of boat propellers. I also created a survey for people to take after they read and look over the pamphlet which encourages pubic participation. The survey is a quantitative way to measure my success.   Results: 🔍 87.5 % of people think propeller guards would help protect the environment 68.8 % of people think boat propellers damage the environment 93.8% of people think preventative strike devices should be required 87.5 of people think that boat propellers harm marine life More Results : 🔍💥 81.3 % of people think boat owners would benefit from preventative strike devices such as propeller guards 93.8 % of people think that propeller guards would help protect marine life 81.3 % of...
Read more