Co-Existence Between Offshore Wind Farm and Fisheries: Experiences in Japan
摘要
Coastal fisheries are actively being done around Japan from long time ago as traditional use of the sea. On the other hand, offshore wind farm projects are being rapidly planned in recent years as newcomer. Sometimes it raises a kind of conflicts between wind farm developers and fishermen, and co-existence is the most desirable solution for both sides. Some proposals on this topic were publicized by RIOE, an ocean-related organization, in 2013 and 2015, showing some possible alternatives in the case of fixed type and floating type turbines respectively. In 2019, Offshore Wind Farm Promotion Act was enacted, and it contains a guideline of consensus building procedure. Upon this legal framework, some local round-table councils are being organized which gather the representatives of fisherman’s cooperatives in order to examine co-existence policies. Some agreed opinions of these councils indicate a certain percentage of developers’ revenue might be donated to the fisherman’s cooperatives, and the others describe certain amount of money upon the capacity size of the wind farm project would be contributed to the Fisheries Promotion Fund which would be newly built for this purpose. In the light of these arguments, the author reports on these experiences in Japan.