A Study on Fisheries Management and Regulation of Fishing Area Disputes in Korean Coastal Waters

어업관리와 조업분쟁 조정에 관한 고찰 -연안어선어업의 조업구역을 중심으로-

The Proposal of this paper is to draw up solution about fishing disputes in Korea coastal waters. Small fishing vessels under 8 metric tons which is regulated by the provincial governors, must operate within provincial boundary on the sea as in fishery policy of Korea. on this, I think that the present situations of fishing disputes have related to the fishing license system. Problem of this kind, Before 1970's, fishing disputes rarely took place, and it, if any, did not bring any social conflicts or disputes. Since 1980's, some of fishing disputes have been reported within fisheries society Recently, The disputes have been increasing to become social conflicts between local people concerned and have evoked an argument on whether the provincial boundary on the sea exists. If such disputes continues to increases or remains unsolved, they will bring a tremendous social cost such as an accelerated decrease in fish resources, degradation of fishing grounds, disorder in fishing, destruction of fisheries culture and so on. The reasons for the growing disputes can be specified as fellows : the degradation of fish resources, the present fishing license system which inherently causes competitions in fish catching, irrational ceiling system of fishing vessels, legal problem on existing boundary between neighbouring two provinces, the functional problem of national or regional fishery coordination committee which has been established to coordinate general fishing disputes. This study has also dealt with Japan's experiences in fishing disputes which has the history of more than a hundred years and its coordinating mechanism. In the discussion section, some possible solutions have been briefly touched fer further study.