A Brief Comparison of Fisheries Livelihoods Strategy: Countries Experiences of Japan and Indonesia

Abstract

Differences in socio economic status of coastal community in developed country and developing country have an impact on behavior of people in dealing with development of livelihoods strategy. The objective of this paper is to compare the strategy of fishermen to develop fisheries livelihood activities. The comparison of fishermen’s strategy in different countries includes socio-economy characteristics of fishermen at study sites, challenges and opportunities in developing coastal livelihoods, fishers’ perception and stakeholder participation in developing fisheries livelihoods. This study was conducted in Akitsu Cho (town), Higashi Hiroshima Shi (city), Hiroshima Prefecture (province) and Hinase Cho (town), Bizen Shi (city), Okayama Prefecture (province), in Japan and two coastal villages in Indonesia namely Laikang Village in South Sulawesi province and Serewe Village in West Nusa Tenggara Province by administering semi-structured and structured questionnaires. Secondary data were included from statistics, published books, scientific journals and other resources. Descriptive analysis used to interpret the data. The findings show that developing fisheries livelihood in two countries in Asia have different circumstances and different strategies. Based on the above circumstances, women of fishermen’s village can get their idea of consumer’s needs and also create their opinions. Indonesian coastal villages have more to conduct double strategy. It means, fishermen conducted two different livelihood activities by family anticipating for low fisheries season and/or off fisheries season. In Japan side, fishermen spend more time for marketing through both direct and indirect channel by women which improve their household income.