Mekong River Commission

Growing regional awareness of fisheries highlights need
for greater recognition of food security issues

Yasuhisa Kato returned to Japan earlier this year after 11 years as special advisor to the Southeast Asia Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC) in Bangkok. Before that, he spent eight years with the Fisheries Department of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome. In his new position as professor at the Center for International Planning at Kagoshima University, Dr Kato is working to expand regional cooperation with ASEAN countries and Pacific island nations. Here he speaks to Catch and Culture about his time in Bangkok and Rome-and his hopes for the university in Kagoshima which has eight faculties, 1,000 researchers and 10,000 students.

Dr Kato

How visible are Southeast Asian fisheries today compared with 1997 when you arrived at SEAFDEC and how have collaborative mechanisms with ASEAN and its members evolved during this period?

SEAFDEC was not very internationally visible when I joined. Even FAO did not clearly understand SEAFDEC’s functions and activities in those days. After I joined, SEAFDEC developed a strategic plan which clarified the needs for international visibility. Since then, international activities have included organising the ASEAN-SEAFDEC Millennium Conference with 800 participants and developing a regional policy on fisheries and an organisational partnership with ASEAN in 2001 and regionalising the Code of Conduct program between 1998 and 2005. Before 1998, SEAFDEC hardly promoted regionallyrecognised projects. It had been developed as an organisation to transfer fisheries-related technologies, mainly from Japan to other member countries. This reflected development needs over the 30 years since its establishment in 1967.

However, due to the declining trend of fisheries resources, the development focus shifted internationally towards the sustainable use of resources from 1992. Reflecting such a drastic shift in international fisheries policy, SEAFDEC approached ASEAN for an organisational partnership. This was mainly due to the need for regional policy support, first to regulate fisheries-that is an extremely difficult task for individual fisheries-related agencies-and second to address the external threats caused by various globalisation initiatives.

One of the visible effects was Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR and Myanmar joining SEAFDEC. International and regional cooperation have been drastically improved since 1998. For funding support and collaborative work, cooperation related to the Lower Mekong Basin has included ASEAN, the ASEAN Foundation, FAO, APFIC, MRC, the Swedish Board of Fisheries, SIDA, UNEP and other regional organisations.

ASEAN agriculture ministers have been meeting on an annual basis since 1979 and collectively with their Chinese, Japanese and Korean counterparts since 2001. In your opinion, do these meetings of ASEAN Ministers in Agriculture and Forestry (AMAF) sufficiently recognise the importance of fisheries? Has the ASEAN+3 process with China, Japan and Korea had any impact on how fisheries issues are addressed by ASEAN members?

SEAFDEC has regularly participated in the ASEAN Sectoral Working Group on Fisheries, Senior Officials Meetings and AMAF meetings since 1998. Due to the active participation of SEAFDEC, it is understood that the fisheries sector can be recognised as one of the most active sectors in AMAF meetings. The ASEAN+3 process with China, Japan and Korea has not yet reached an active level for the fisheries sector as far as I understand.

AMAF has endorsed regional Guidelines for Responsible Fisheries in Southeast Asia and the Resolution and Plan of Action for Sustainable Fisheries for Food Security adopted at the Millennium Conference in 2001. The guidelines have been popularised in SEAFDEC and ASEAN member countries including translation into national languages. Regional recognition of SEAFDEC initiatives has led to an FAO award related to the Code of Conduct for SEAFDEC, the Margarita-Lizzaraga Medal in 2008.

How important is fisheries to food security in Southeast Asia in general and the four Mekong members of ASEAN in particular?

It is very important although government sectors in the region are not serious about the issue of fisheries contribution to food security. As far as I remember, FAO defines foreign exchange earnings through the export of foodstuffs as having an effect on food security. But this may ignore the effects on poor people who produce their food and do not purchase it. Although most Southeast Asian countries have promoted exports of aquaculture products to earn foreign exchange, they are forgetting that a major amount of feed derived from low-value fish is a major source of protein for poor people. Low-value fish have been taken away from the poor and used in aquaculture, which is a market for rich people. In this connection, freshwater fisheries resources will be increasingly important for the food security of people in the Lower Mekong Basin.

What were the greatest challenges of being in charge of FAO fisheries policy and planning between 1994 and 1997?

My work experience before joining the FAO Policy and Planning Division involved assisting fisheries development in developing countries. So I had difficulties with the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries because it was not prepared for these developing countries but based on requirements for developed fishing nations. Although I proposed regionalising the Code of Conduct to accommodate specific issues for developing countries, such initiatives were not popular in FAO, which had a strong focus on taking a global approach to promoting sustainable fisheries. It might be considered that the regionalised approach deviated from the global approach. That can be one of the reasons why I moved to SEAFDEC and initiated the regionalisation of the Code of Conduct.

You contributed to the establishment of the Network of Aquaculture Centers of the Asia-Pacific while you were in Rome. How long did it take from the Bangkok conference in 1988 for NACA to be up and running properly and what were the biggest obstacles in the early days?

One of the large-scale projects operating in the Mekong Basin was a UNDP regional aquaculture project that was the forerunner of NACA. I do not recall any obstacles in the early days because of the fact that such an aquaculture network was supported by the region reflecting the boom in aquaculture in those days and the strong leadership of the project director, Mr Chen Foo Yan. As the project office was located in Bangkok, I do not recall any big argument for hosting arrangements by other countries.

Did any of your work running a fisheries consulting company before joining FAO bring you into contact with fisheries in Mekong Basin?

I was a team leader of a large-scale aquaculture project in Thailand¯mainly shrimp pond culture together with pen, cage and integrated fish farming for various species. It was a 5-year project in the early 80s funded by ADB. The project was successfully implemented and connected to the aquaculture boom afterward in Thailand.

You worked as a small-scale fisherman for a fisheries cooperative in Hokkaido as a student in the late sixties and mid-seventies. Are you aware of any examples of where the Japanese model for fisheries cooperatives has successfully been emulated in freshwater fisheries in the Mekong Basin?

My work experience in the fisheries cooperatives became a basis to develop the SEAFDEC regional guidelines for rights-based fisheries. SEAFDEC published the guidelines in 2005 as one of the regional guidelines for the Code of Conduct. Thailand, Lao PDR and especially Viet Nam are seriously investigating the implementation of rights-based fisheries using a comanagement approach.

When was Kagoshima University's collaborative relationship with SEAFDEC established and what have been some of the major achievements?

The collaborative relationship started in 2003. As the nature of activities of a regional organisation and a university are quite different, the main achievements have been confined to the exchange of students and staff in areas of mutual interest and participation in meetings. Kagoshima University has been cooperating mainly with Indonesia, Malaysia Philippines Thailand and Viet Nam on an individual basis with researchers. Based on its past experience, it has recently clarified its policy for international cooperation as a university targeting Asia and Pacific Islands with specific focus on Southeast Asian countries. This is the reason why I moved to the university¯not to the Fisheries Faculty but to an advisory function attached to the President's office. In the first few months, I have been busy developing the university’s policy for international cooperation as a think tank.

Is Kagoshima University involved with any other projects in the Mekong Basin or is it considering any plans for such cooperation? How does fisheries research and development fit into the university's strategic plan?

Kagoshima University has collaborated with Thailand in fields such as forestry dynamics, biological research including insects, microbiology, biomass and productivity of inshore water, bamboo resources, tropical foodstuffs, tree crops, legumes and field work in social sciences. The university has also collaborated with Myanmar in agriculture and Viet Nam in the fields of microbiology, forestry rehabilitation and bamboo resources. However, it should be noted that such cooperation has been in an ad-hoc manner based on projects promoted by individual researchers. International cooperation in fisheries has the most advanced status at the university due to the efforts made by researchers in the Fisheries Faculty, which has initiated close linkages with University of the Philippines and SEAFDEC. Fisheries research and development is therefore one of the focuses of the strategy for international cooperation.