One year after the massive earthquake and tsunami hit the Tohoku region, harvesting of wakame seaweed has started in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures. But the 3/11 disasters have left deep scars in fisheries of the region's Pacific coastal areas. The central and local governments and fishing industry people need new thinking and approaches to revive the fisheries in the region as well as in all of Japan.
According to the farm, forestry and fisheries ministry, the 3/11 disasters have caused ¥2.370 billion in damage to Japan's agriculture, forestry and fisheries industry- about 26 times more than the great Kobe earthquake of January 1995 caused. About 90 percent of the damage occurred in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, which were hit by the 3/11 tsunami. Fish catches in December 2011 in the three prefectures were half of what they were a year earlier.
Although the 3/11 disasters have played havoc with fisheries of the Pacific coastal areas in Tohoku, attention must be paid to the longer trends affecting the nation's fisheries. The fish harvest peaked at 12.8 million tons in 1984 but fell to 5.47 million tons in 2009. The average annual income of coastal fishermen fell to as low as ¥2.51 million.