KASAHARA: JAPANESE DISTANT-WATER FISHERIES 



year by Japan for 1958-60 and 480,000 cases by 

 the Soviet Union for 1958). The commission 

 recommended to close waters south of lat 53 °N, 

 and the Soviet government undertook to take a 

 similar measure for fishing within its territorial 

 sea. The national quotas for mothership fish- 

 eries were further reduced in 1959 to 280,000 

 cases for Japan and 420,000 cases for the Soviet 

 Union. Various other measures also took effect 

 to restrict fishing and avoid conflicts. Further 

 changes were made thereafter to increase the 

 proportion of the Soviet share in the total 

 mothership catch and to reallocate fishing 

 grounds between the fleets of the two nations 

 (Figure 9) , with the Soviet Union taking some- 

 what wider strips. 



Figure 9. — Allocation of king crab fishing grounds off 

 west Kamchatka, 1957-64 (from Norin Keizai Kenkyu- 

 sho, 1965). 



A new situation developed in 1968 when the 

 Soviet government declared sovereign rights to 

 the resources of the continental shelf and wished 

 to enter into negotiations in 1969 for a separate 

 agreement for crab fishing. As in the case of 

 United States-Japan negotiations, Japan refused 

 to recognize the Soviet claim not only on the 

 ground that Japan was not a party to the con- 

 tinental shelf convention (the Soviet ratified the 

 continental shelf convention in 1960) but also 

 for the reason that she did not consider the crab 

 a continental shelf resource. The fact that Ja- 

 pan is not a party to the convention might not 

 have been considered a strong enough reason 



for arguing against the Soviet claim since the 

 convention had been ratified by most of the ma- 

 jor fishing nations. After prolonged negotia- 

 tions, an agreement (in the form of an exchange 

 of letters, along with a protocol and agreed min- 

 utes) was reached by shelving the positions of 

 the two governments on legal questions. 



Thus, the numbers of vessels (motherships or 

 land-based vessels) were limited and the catch 

 quotas (in terms of either canned crab produced 

 or the number of crabs caught) established for 

 P. camtschatica in west Kamchatka; "ibara 

 crab" (a deepwater crab, Lithodes aequispina) 

 in west Kamchatka ; tanner crab in the western 

 Bering Sea (off the Gulf of Anadyr and waters 

 between Cape Olyutorskiy and Cape Govena) ; 

 tanner crab, P. camtschatica, and P. platypus 

 ("abura crab") in waters off the east coast of 

 Sakhalin; hair crab (Erimacrus) and P. brev- 

 ipes ("hanasaki crab") in waters around the 

 southernmost islands of the Kurile chain (Fig- 

 ure 10) ." Fishing grounds for all these fisheries 

 were specified, and closed seasons, size limits, 

 and various other restrictions applied. The Jap- 

 anese government issued a new set of domestic 

 regulations to cover these fisheries. Quotas for 

 most areas were further reduced in 1970. 



Fur Seal Convention 



As mentioned above, Japan undertook, during 

 the occupation period, to voluntarily prohibit her 

 nationals or vessels from carrying on pelagic fur 

 sealing, pending the conclusion of a new con- 

 vention. Negotiations for a new convention took 

 a number of years, and the convention signed 

 in 1957 (came into force the same year) was 

 called an Interim Convention for the Conserva- 

 tion of North Pacific Fur Seals. Although it is 



^^ Japan had developed a substantial mothership fish- 

 ery for P. platypus in waters along the coast of Olyu- 

 torskiy. This fishery was terminated by the 1969 crab 

 agreement on the ground that the stock had been de- 

 pleted. The remaining part of the crab fishery in that 

 region was mainly for tanner crab in waters east of 

 Cape Navarin and west of Cape Olyutorskiy conducted 

 by motherships and land-based vessels. Japanese tanner 

 crab fishing in waters off the west coast of Sakhalin and 

 Primore (the Soviet mainland coast of the Japan Sea) 

 was also terminated with the fishing vessels transferred 

 to the tanner crab grounds along the east coast of 

 Sakhalin. 



253 



