THE LIMITS OF FISHERY COOPERATIVES - COMMUNITY-DEVELOPMENT AND RURAL DEPOPULATION IN HOKKAIDO, JAPAN

This paper explores the interrelationships between rural out-migration, long-term resource decline and cooperative organization in the case of one fishing community in Hokkaido, Japan. Contrary to the experience of many other Japanese fishing communities, the three cooperatives in the community under study have not been able to develop a coherent response to crisis and decline. A combination of fishing group protectionism and organizational rigidity has limited the ability of fishing cooperatives to respond in a consensual, collective fashion to the needs of the community. It is argued that the single stakeholder nature of the cooperative and the entrenchment of inequitable resource allocation around contemporary developments in seaweed mariculture, have generated intracommunity divisions. These difficulties present obstacles to a community-focused reconstruction strategy both within and outside the fishery.