Issue:
May 2024 | Letter from Hokkaido
The Ainu’s fight for indigenous commercial fishing rights is about far more than culture
In late March, the Sapporo District Court rejected the claims of the Raporo Ainu Nation that they had an inherent right, as an indigenous people, to engage in commercial salmon fishing.
The case, the first of its kind in Japan, grabbed international attention last year after indigenous peoples from Finland, Canada, Australia, and other countries held a symposium in Hokkaido’s Urahiro district.
Raporo Ainu Nation president Masaki Sashima, Aslak Holmberg, president of the Saami Council, which represents between 50,000 and 80,000 Saami in Finland, Russia, Norway and Sweden, and Russ Jones, hereditary chief of the Haida Nation in Canada, later gave a press conference at the FCCJ, where they argued that their commercial fishing rights were guaranteed by international law.
The Sapporo ruling dealt a second blow to the Raporo Ainu Nation, coming just two months after Sashima’s death. The court said the stretch of river where the Raporo Ainu wished to catch salmon for commercial gain, rather than for solely cultural reasons, was public property. Therefore, the court added, it could not recognize the river as the property of one specific group of people.
The plaintiffs' lawyers immediately appealed to the Sapporo High Court.
The Raporo case is crucial because it has forced Japan to define what it means by Ainu rights, not just on paper but also in practice. The Japanese government acknowledges that the Ainu have the right to observe their traditional culture, as it enhances the image officialdom hopes to project to the rest of the world.
But those rights become problematic when they clash with politically powerful groups such as fisheries cooperatives or are seen as a challenge to the authority of bureaucrats in the agriculture, environmental and land ministries.
The UN’s Human Rights Committee, which tracks whether countries are abiding by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR] – which covers indigenous rights – has stated in the case of the Saami people that herding reindeer for economic reasons is an essential part of their identity, coming under a broad definition of protecting culture.
The Sapporo court recognized that under the ICCPR and Article 13 of the Japanese constitution, the Ainu have the right to practice their culture, meaning that salmon fishing should be respected “as much as possible”.
But when it comes to commercial salmon fishing, the court said the issue at stake was not culture but making money from rivers deemed to be public property.
The court cited Article 29 of the constitution, which guarantees the right to property, in concluding that it would be wrong to say that one group has a natural, inherent right to commercially exploit that property.
The Raporo Ainu Nation describes as unreasonable the distinction between their right to fish for salmon for cultural reasons and commercial fishing – which would allow them to sell their catch and invest the proceeds in their local communities.
News of the Sapporo decision did not come as a surprise to most local Ainu groups and scholars, who have a realistic view of the struggle to secure their rights. They don’t hold out much hope that the decision will be overturned by the Sapporo High Court. They could try to take their case all the way to the Supreme Court, but there is no guarantee that it would give them a hearing.
Some in the Japanese government fear that victory for the Raporo Ainu Nation would open the door to other Ainu groups in Hokkaido to stake their claim to inherent salmon fishing rights in local rivers and bays.
That would be seen as a threat to the powerful salmon fishing establishment. Hokkaido accounts for 98% of Japan’ ocean salmon catches and 94% of its inland water catches.
At the FCCJ press conference, Sashima conceded that the Ainu’s struggle was likely to be a long one. Current practice allows the Raporo Ainu Nation to catch a limited number of salmon (decided on an annual basis by the bureaucrats) for ritual purposes. To reach the point where Ainu can fish commercially for salmon because it is their indigenous right – and not because they negotiated the red tape and launched a business for that purpose – current laws will have to be amended and new legislation introduced at the national and local levels.
Political support for that change is virtually non-existent in Tokyo and Hokkaido. Instead, local officials seem to think that as long as the Ainu add a splash of local color to the Hokkaido tourism experience, there isn’t much else that can be done. Whichever way the Raporo Ainu Nation lawsuit goes, the final legal verdict is unlikely to end the debate on what indigenous rights mean on a daily basis, both for the Ainu and their neighbours.
Eric Johnston is the Senior National Correspondent for the Japan Times. Views expressed within are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Japan Times.
