Research On Transferring Coastal Fishermen In China

With constant inflation of the fishing capacity in nearly a decade,inshore fishery resources have being reducing sharp in China. After the signature and entry into force of the " Sino-Japanese fisheries agreement "," Sino-South Korean fisheries agreements " and " Sino-Vietnam fisheries agreement of northern Gulf " in succession,coastal fishery fields have been decreasing on a large scale than ever and large quantities of fishing boats have to be withdrawn from traditional fields, which encounter marine fishing an unprecedented rigorous challenge in China. In order to solve the problem of increasingly serious livelihood of the coastal fishermen,the Ministry of Agriculture made a policy of transferring fishermen to other industries in 2002, striving to reduce 30,000 fishing boats and realize 300,000 fishermen'transfer within about 5 years.Due to joint efforts nationwide in recent years, China has scored some achievements in the course of reducing boats and transferring fishermen, including reduced total fishing boats and realized transfer of part fishermen. However, there has not witnessed progresses as assumed on the whole as most fishermen still keep their previous occupation with a low level production. Actually there are more and more difficulties in reducing fishing boats and even bigger pressure of overfishing. Thus we are compelled to re-recognize the complexity and toughness of the undertakings of transferring coastal fishermen.As for the reason of fishermen'transfer, the author considers that it is inevitable thanks to structural change of the industry and binary economic development in urban and rural areas, which are coupled with deteriorated marine eco-environment, over-used fishery resources and changed international management system on marine fishery resources. Outwardly,it is the signature and enforcement of the three fishery bilateral agreements that force the fishermen to transfer to other industries, as they have resulted in comparatively more boats or fishermen but limited fishery resources. Whereas the dominated reason lies in the resources'characteristic of common property resource or common pool resource, which usually bring tragedy for the resources. And the root of problems in fishing industry lies in the free entrance mechanism. As transferring the fishermen is centering in fishing's compliance with the regeneration of fishery resource and sustainable utilization of it finally, thus we need to attach much importance to the fishermen'transfer to find out the root cause of complicated problems in fishery.The author also holds the idea that,the free entrance system contains irrational stimulation , which stimulates the fishermen using the resources excessively and inefficiently and finally generates a double redundancy problem of both fishery labor and fishing capacity inevitably. In this case,it can't solve the problem basically merely depending on the government encouraging the fishermen to reduce their boats and switch to another industry. So we must focus on the construction of system,and try to eliminate the root which generates excessive capture. If cure somebody of his/her head when he/she has a headache,or cure somebody of his/her feet when he/she has a hurt in his/her feet,maybe the case of transfer can take effect for a while,but the problem can't be settled ultimately.As to the widely existed problem of difficulty in transfer, the author applies the Theory of Push & Pull,in conjunction with the practice of Chinese ocean fishery , initially establishes a visual intuitional macroscopic mechanical model of the fishermen's transfer,and analyses the mechanical factors in the activity of the fishermen's transfer systematically. In the author's opinion,our country is facing a strong restriction of fishery resources at present,the profit pulling force impacts on the transfer to some extent,and the government also actively impulses the fishermen's transfer , but the government's impulse represents deficiency limited by the country's financial resource,and transfer falls under somewhat strong resistance of cost, inertia and system, so the impetus of the fishermen's transfer doesn't obviously overcome the resistance as a whole. This is the fundamental cause which generates the difficulty in fishermen's transfer.Further,proceeding from the assumption of economic man and the Todaro Model , the author improves the general model of employment transfer which is used for analyzing the practice of transferring coastal fishermen in China. A conclusion is consequently made: fishermen work for maximum profits. Whether they decide to change their careers depends on how much is the cost and the return they will receive. If they can gain more when occupying in other industries,they will just make a switch, and will refuse otherwise. Currently , there are some negative factors bottlenecking the transfer of coastal fishermen,such as high sunk cost of fishing boats,few reemployment opportunities and much capital needed, which may indicate no profits for their . Given fishing is still profitable, it is certainly a violation of convention in economics that fishermen were required to abandon their current jobs at the risk of losing their living to search for new ones that seems to only bring uncertain income.With regard to the target industries of transfer,the author after analyzing the experience home and abroad agrees that,it conforms to the general law of the world industry structure evolution and labor migration to focus on saltwater aquaculture,aquatic processing and leisure fishery. One thing needs to be pointed out that the fishery alone is hard to absorb such a large quantity of surplus fishermen due to its capacity and development regularity. And in consequence some fishermen are compelled to leave fishing and their villages and earn their livings in other places, namely new cities and towns established in the process of urbanization.In the last chapter of this paper,drawing on successful experiences of fishery-developed countries,the author concludes that the radical solution for fishermen'transfer lies in fishery system innovation. Proved by both the theories and many countries'practices,the Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQ) system can serve as an ultimate solution for the problems existed in fishery industry. It can,by cutting the root baffling the transfer,solve the problem of overfishing which is common in the world at large so as to realize sustainable use of fishery resources. For this reason,we should spare no effort to prepare a series of elementary work for implementing ITQ system. To apply it more efficiently in the future,we should enhance traditional fishery management,strengthen the establishment of the system of fishermen allowance and fishing-access permit,tighten input controls so as to avoid periodical inflation of fishing capacity. And the realization of fishermen's transfer backed by increased government policies actually will reduce the cost of implementing ITQ system as much as possible in the coming years.