The Enclosing Salmon project examines the rapidly developing aquaculture of salmon and its impacts on Japan’s society and ecosystem. Globally, aquaculture is on the rise. The total sale value of world fisheries and aquaculture production in 2016 was estimated at USD 362 billion, of which USD 232 billion (64%) was from aquaculture production (FAO 2018). In Japan, 58 business entities have  established salmon aquaculture both offshore and on land in Japan (Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency 2018). In this context of the increasing importance of aquaculture in fisheries, this project employs social-ecological systems (SES) analysis to investigate how and why salmon has shifted from something we catch in the seas to something we grow in enclosed facilities. Crucially, salmon is both a commodity in the global food economy and a keystone species in the natural food web. Yet, the technological development of salmon aquaculture has enabled us not only to reproduce salmon by human hands but also to fill in the gap between declining salmon catches in the seas and growing consumption of salmon as a result of global dietary shifts. While the recent developments in offshore and land-based facilities for salmon farming emphasizes environmental sustainability, they separate salmon from their local ecologies. In doing so, it has also transformed the economic and ecological functions as well as cultural meanings of salmon. Overall, this project seeks to understand how the enclosure of salmon influences the sustainability of existing ecological systems and the governance over its production, distribution, and consumption. 

This project is a collaboration with Dr. Takehiro Watanabe from the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Sophia University.

More info: https://www.kasasustainability.org/research