Changes in Marine Seafood Consumption in Tokyo, Japan

This article examines the historical trends of Tokyo’s marine seafood consumption and tensions over how to promote urban sustainable consumption. Despite overwhelming evidence that global fish stocks are depleting, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has not advanced an agenda to directly support sustainable seafood consumption. In this vacuum national government policies, increasing wealth, changes in preferences and private initiatives have promoted the consumption of ever larger amounts of seafood. Notwithstanding these forces, however, consumption patterns since the 1970s have changed in unpredictable ways. The per capita proportion consumed of prized, high trophic level and high status seafood, such as carnivorous fish, is declining while the consumption of other types of seafood from lower trophic levels is increasing. Moreover, seafood prices seem to play little role in these trends. Despite their great wealth and the forces that are promoting increased consumption, those living in Tokyo cannot overcome the biophysical limits posed by increasing depleted marine stocks. These results suggest an urgent need to begin implementing policies that will help lower seafood consumption at the local, national and global level to protect this resource for future generations.