15 Years On: Newcomer Helps Revive Ishinomaki’s Fishing Industry

Ishinomaki, Miyagi Pref., March 12 (Jiji Press)–In Ishinomaki, a Pacific coastal city in northeastern Japan, Miki Takahashi begins work before dawn, following the rhythm of the sea she chose more than a decade ago. Now 38, the woman from an inland area is helping breathe new life into a fishing community still recovering from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. In a rare achievement for someone who was not born into the local industry, Takahashi has earned fishing rights from the local fisheries cooperative, a sign of the trust she has gained in the community. Working at Yamase Takahashi Suisan, she has steadily expanded her skills beyond “wakame” seaweed cultivation to octopus and sea urchin fishing, driven by what she calls a desire to “keep improving.” Takahashi grew up far from ocean, in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, but from an early age she loved visiting her grandmother in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, and spending time by the sea. After the disaster, her grandmother’s health deteriorated while living in evacuation shelters, and she later died. Takahashi had just started working as a teacher at a special-needs school in Saitama, but in 2013 she moved to Ishinomaki, hoping to help in whatever way she could. Around that time, she learned about Yamase Takahashi Suisan, a company struggling to revive the local wakame farming industry in Ogatsu, a depopulating district in northeastern Ishinomaki. In the wake of the disaster, Ogatsu’s population had fallen to roughly a quarter of its former size. While keeping her daytime job, Takahashi volunteered at the company before sunrise and after dark, traveling nearly an hour each way from central Ishinomaki. The long commute was wearing for her. Eventually, she told company head Yoichi Takahashi, “I want to live here and give myself fully to fishing.” The 61-year-old manager admits he was unsure at first. Fishing remains a male-dominated field, and the work is physically demanding. But her determination won him over. He now speaks with admiration of the fisherwoman, who went on to earn qualifications to operate lifts and other equipment, one after another, and even mastered diving for sea urchins. “I never imagined she would come this far,” he says. At the company, the work changes with the seasons. Spring is the busy season for harvesting wakame. Early summer is devoted to “hijiki” seaweed and “konbu” kelp, while summer brings sea urchin season. Scallop fishing peaks from autumn through winter. In busy seasons, work stretches late into the night and begins again before dawn. “It’s a schedule unimaginable for a salaried office worker,” the former schoolteacher says. Even so, she speaks with a laugh about the job she loves–one that keeps her close to the sea and allows her to feel the changing seasons. “I think I’ve been able to continue doing this because it suits me,” she says. The fishing industry along the Sanriku coast in northeastern Japan, including Ishinomaki, is facing a widespread shortage of successors after suffering severe damage in the March 2011 disaster. Declining catches, believed to be linked to climate change, have added to the strain. For scallops and similar species, “we can now catch only about half of what we did before the disaster,” the company head says, his expression clouded. Nevertheless, his female employee is taking on new challenges, including launching online sales for the company. “I don’t want fishing here to disappear, because I want people to understand the bounty of these seas,” she says. With the goal of one day becoming fully independent, she continues to head out on the waters off Ogatsu. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]