REVIVING FISHERY TECHNIQUES:THE FISHING INDUSTRY IN POST-DISASTER
SHINCHI-MACHI, FUKUSHIMA PREFECTURE
Shuichi Kawashima

International Research Institute of Disaster Sciences, Tohoku University

The coastal area of Fukushima Prefecture suffered a ‘double’ disaster in the Great East
Japan Earthquake, first in the form of a disaster caused by the massive tsunami, andsubsequently by the nuclear accident of Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima
Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which was a man-made disaster. From June 2012, a yeara�er the earthquake, a ‘trial fishing’ system was implemented along with a system ofinspection, including the selection of fish species and fishing ground, and controlled
management of the shipping system. The purpose of this ‘trial fishing’ is to monitor
whether fish are contaminated by radioactive materials, throughout the processes
from catching to marketing, and at the same time to increase the opportunities forfishers to maintain their livelihood.
Although they are mechanized, fishery operations still require skills such as selecting
fishing grounds and understanding water conditions, and trial fishing is also essential
for maintaining and passing down these skills and techniques. However, trail fishing
operations are far more restricted than normal operations in that any bycatch of
non-target species is banned, and individual fishing boats are not allowed to decide on
their own to operate or not under certain weather conditions. There are fewer fish
markets where fishermen can unload their catch, and they must transport theircatches to the markets by themselves. In fact, such inconvenience imposed by thissystem is far from the original fishing practice.
At Shinchi-machi in Fukushima Prefecture, for example, there were many fishing boats
sized around 6 tons doing net fishing, and of the 44 fishing boats at the time of theearthquake, 32 survived the tsunami by escaping offshore. Some boats weresubsequently retired, while six were built a�er the earthquake. Currently, 32 boats are
participating in the trial fishing.
Changes a�er the earthquake in the size and the quantity of the catch are as a matterof course related to the changes in fishing techniques. For instance, the overall size offish off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture is ge�ng bigger. As trial fishing isundertaken only once or twice a week, not only the number of fish but also their size
is increasing. In the case of gillnets for fishing karei (righteyed-flounder) before theNew Year, their mesh size has been changed to 6 sun 3 bu (using traditional
measurements, approximately 19 cm), compared to their pre-tsunami size of 5 sun(approximately 15 cm) wide. Improvement of fishing net as such has happened
recently in the fishing communities in southern Miyagi prefecture, which isneighboring Shinchi-machi. It is the fishermen near the border of Fukushima

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Figure 1
A ﬁshing boat cooperating inthe ‘sampling survey’.
(Source: S. Kawashima, 31October 2018)

Prefecture such as Shinchi-machi who are most frustrated because, despite the fish
are growing bigger and in quantities, the restriction set by trial fishing that onlypermits fishing once or twice a week, and the fish population that grew bigger off thecoast of Fukushima Prefecture migrate to Miyagi Prefecture.
In addition, bycatch of certain fish varieties such as kounago (young Pacific sand lance)and shirauo (whitebat) are prohibited under trail fishing to begin with, although suchbycatch is not so common due to differentiated fishing methods. Regulation of theSoma Harakama Fisheries Cooperative stipulates orders to release non-target fishspecies, such as: ‘the owner of the operating boat must release the fish and shellfish
that were caught as bycatch, except for the target fish species, and never take themhome’ (on trial fishing of kounago 2018), and ‘never land bycatches other than thetarget species; the captain should take responsibility to release the bycatch from theboat’ (on shirauo trial gillnet fishing 2018).
In fact, fishermen are generally satisfied with their catches of the day that are given
by God, and it is hard for them to think about discarding some fish just because they
are non-target species. To the contrary, there is also a saying that ’it is always thesample survey when catches are less’ (Figure 1). This is a sort of precept among thefishermen that is widespread across Japan, that if you have a strong desire to catch
fish, you will not gain many, which is similar to a common jinx that says ‘therequested fish will not be caught’. A captain of a fishing boat in Shinchi-machi says ‘ifyou load an empty tank (to store the catches) on your truck, you would not be able tocatch any fish’. Another fisherman says ‘if you bring a lot of ice (to keep the catch) on
the boat, you will not catch many fish’. It seems that, if you express your intention tocatch a lot of fish, God will not bless you with fish. Considering these ways ofthinking, the ban on bycatch in ‘trial fishing’ and ‘resource management’ are bothpeople-centered ways of dealing with the sea, although there is a slight difference ofcatching a lot or less.

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Figure 2Fishermen returning to thebank a�er tying up theirboats away from the quay atright angle, to avoid damage
from a storm.
(Source: S. Kawashima, 10June 2018)

While fishermen endure restrictions such as not being able to decide on their own thedays to fish, fishermen communities of Tsurushihama and Odohama in Shinchi-machi
still maintain traditional practices of mutual assistance called yuiko, in which members
join forces when, for instance, a boat is taking longer to unload takings, or when
repairing a member’s fishing net. Some customary practices led by the boat-owners’
associations such as tsunakake and ‘se�ng boats on a right angle (fune-wo tate-nisuru)’ (Figure 2) are also carried out within the same cooperative system. Boats at theharbor are generally anchored alongside the quay, either on the starboard or the portside. However, as a low pressure or a typhoon approaches, ropes are stretched in amatrix in the middle of the harbor, within which boats are aligned to avoid themhi�ng the quay and ge�ng damaged. This cooperative work is the tsunakake and‘fune-wo tate-ni suru’. By hanging dubs (port fenders) on both sides of the boat, they
will not hit each other.
As described above, ‘a fishery technique become successful only when a series ofoperations of people, boats and fishing gears are united as a whole and activatedorganically’ (Shibusawa 1962), which in a broad sense includes the fisheryorganization and management. In other words, as was the case in Shinchi-machi, suchtime-honored work practice has most significantly contributed to the prompt recoveryof local fishing operations a�er the 2011 earthquake. It demonstrates that postdisaster rehabilitation is not the sole preserve of NPOs and urban engineering
specialists, who suddenly appeared in affected localities in the wake of the tsunami
disaster.
Also, most of the fishermen in Shinchi-machi lost their homes to the tsunami and hadto be relocated collectively, mostly to Jingokita (Odohama) (approximately 70households) and Gangoya (approximately 30 households). At these newly-adopted
home, community members maintain their traditional customary practices such as
mukaebi (welcoming fire) for the Bon festival. As a result, the mukaebi ritual, which is
no longer common in central parts of Shinchi-machi, is practiced simultaneously at
two separate locations: Jingokita, and Gangoya to the west of the central area ofShinchi Town, closer to the mountain side.

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On the monument of Nagare-sen kuyō (a memorial for wrecked boats), which wasrelocated from Tsurushihama to Odohama a�er the tsunami in 2011, the names areengraved of 30 individuals who lost their lives in nine disastrous events at sea, ranging
from the massive tsunami in 1902 to the recent one in 2011.
Coastal communities such as Tsurushihama and Odohama have always been exposed
to sea accidents and disasters, which could have contributed to maintaining strong ties
between the living and the dead. This explains why Bon rituals including the mukaebi
have been so important and carefully practiced in these communities. Whatsociologists call the ‘disintegration of community’ cannot be applied here.
For fishery to revive as a livelihood, not only do practical fishing techniques need to betransmitted but attention must be paid to intangible factors that supported fishingtechniques, such as the fishermen’s a�tude towards fish and the customary practicesof the fishing communities.

R���������Shibusawa, K. (1962). Nihon tsuriryo gijutsushi shoukou (Some thoughts on the history of fishingtechniques in Japan). Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten.

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