The complex evolution of Japan's distant water fisheries : Exploring the evolution of Japan's distant water fisheries from 1950-2014

Abstract: Fisheries are dynamic social-ecological systems shaped by the interplay of diverse political, economic, social and ecological factors. Recently, recognition has grown that fisheries are complex adaptive systems and warrant examination within a broader social-ecological context. While there has been a recent trend within fisheries science and management towards embracing more holistic approaches, research on global fisheries rarely addresses the complexities that shape large-scale fishing patterns. In this thesis I adopt a complex systems perspective with the ambition of understanding the complex and context-specific nature of global fishing by exploring the evolution of the Japanese distant water fishery (DWF). By combining investigation of global catch statistics with a review of associated primary, secondary and grey literature, I produce a narrative of how the Japanese DWF has expanded and contracted between 1950 and 2014, its geographical extent, and the factors that have contributed to these patterns. The results illustrate how complex and context-specific the DWF system is in the case of Japan. Using this in-depth study, I then address recent publications on global fisheries that use approaches that tend to minimise complexity through generalisations rather than seeking a deeper understanding of how this complexity shapes global fisheries. Finally, based on the exploratory findings of this thesis, I suggest that to better understand the complex dynamics inherent to global fisheries, further research informed by complexity thinking is needed on distant water fishing nations.