Status of Marine Capture Fisheries and Their Management in Japan

Recently about one half of the stocks in Japanese exclusive economic zone (EEZ) have been declined or are stable at low abundance levels. With the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Japan newly introduced a management system based on total allowable catches (TACs). However, the TACs are sometime set quite larger than the scientifically estimated biological allowable catches (ABCs). The existence of several management bodies for a single stock is one reason that TACs are often set larger than ABCs.