今こそ一次産業の振興を図るチャンス！？ [世界は今…]
(素晴らしい能登 能登半島穴水町の幸寿し BLOG： http://kouzushi.her.jp/blog/archives/2007/03/post_839.htmlより転載)
今米国のサブプライム問題に端を発する世界同時株安が世界を震撼させていますね。日本では政府の対応の遅れもあり雇用状況が悪化の一途をたどり、2009年春までに85000人が職を失うと警戒されています。米国のオバマ新政権と異なり、具体的かつ有効な雇用創出を打ち出すことのできない今の政府に代わり、地方自治体レベルでの職の斡旋が試みられていますが、その数は限定的です。では、この危機を人手不足に悩む一次産業や福祉に再分配することはできないものでしょうか。今アイスランドでは漁業の重要性が再認識されつつあるようです。Jill Lawlessさんのレポートです。
The plummeting world economy caused by the mortgage loan issue in the United States is massively threatening the Earth. In Japan, the downturn will drive some 85000 people from their job by March due to insane of the current government unlike the counterpart in the US. Instead of the current cabinet, some local governments try to create new positions; however, the number is limited. Then, would it be possible to introduce fired people to the first industry, such as agriculture, forestry and fishery, and to the welfare industry? Jill Lawless reported on the renaissance of the marine industry in Iceland.
For centuries, Icelanders earned a living from the sea, setting out in small boats to haul cod, haddock and herring from the North Atlantic waters.
島国アイスランドでは漁業で生計を立てる人々が多いそうですね。日本では主に過疎や高齢化などの問題から一次産業従事者の減少に歯止めがかからず、漁業分野でも人材の確保に追われていると報道されていますね。
But in recent years these proud descendants of Vikings found new fish to catch, scooping up businesses around the world with the help of light financial regulation and turbocharged banks.
Now the sea may once again be Iceland’s lifeline. While the rest of the economy crumbles, the island nation’s fishing industry is booming, with big catches and rising export prices thanks to the collapse of Iceland’s currency, the krona.
サブプライムローンの崩壊に端を発する世界経済の急速の落ち込みがあり、国家破産の危機に瀕するアイスランド。何世紀もの間人々が従事してきた漁業がその救世主となるかもしれないというのです。
“There was some banker who said we didn’t need the fishing industry”, said Helgi Mar Sigurgeirsson, chief engineer of a fishing trawler moored in Reykjavik harbour. “He said we could make money with the banks. I’d like to speak to him now”.
まぁまぁ、そうけんかせずに・・・。
Fishing is so entwined with Iceland’s national identity that the country’s coins carry pictures of cod, crabs and capelin. Generations of Icelanders have harvested the rich fishing grounds around the volcanic island, where the warm Gulf Stream and cold Arctic waters meet.
漁業は自然を相手にするため、常に危険と背中合わせであり、大変な仕事です。それでも、人々は何世代にもわたりその自然の恩恵を享受してきたそうです。
It was a hard life, full of danger and conflict.
Between the 1950s and the 1970s, Iceland – sick of what it saw as poaching by foreign vessels – unilaterally expanded its exclusive fishing limit several times, ultimately to 200 nautical miles. The actions sparked a series of “Cod Wars” with Britain where Royal Navy ships sailed for Iceland and Icelandic coast guard boats cut the nets of British trawlers.
1950年代から70年代にかけて、アイスランドとイギリスの間には3回のタラ戦争と呼ばれる争いが起こります。これはアイスランドが一方的に漁業水域を200海里まで拡大したために起きたものですね。
Iceland won the showdown, in part by threatening to kick Nato forces out of their base on the island, and has since gained international praise for managing its fishery sustainably while other countries have over-fished their stocks to extinction.
しかし、他国が漁業資源の乱獲で非難を浴びる中、アイスランドは持続可能な漁業で世界の脚光を浴びます。
Environmentalists and foreign governments are less enamoured of the country’s whaling industry. After an international moratorium since the 1980s, Iceland resumed whaling in 2006. The government says the fin and minke whales being hunted are plentiful in Iceland’s coastal waters, although fin whales are on the International Conservation Union’s “red list” of endangered species.
アイスランドは2006年にクジラ漁を再開しました。政府によると、絶滅危惧種に指定されるfin whalesが数多く水揚げされているそうです。アイスランドは日本と同じく捕鯨国であり、風当たりは強いですね。
Iceland’s fishing industry has always punched above its weight economically. Last year fishing employed four per cent of Iceland’s work force, just over 7,000 people. But seafood accounted for almost half of Iceland’s exports, and 10 per cent of GDP.
昨年、アイスランド人口の4%、7000人あまりが漁業に従事し、輸出総額の約半分、GDPの10%を担う基幹産業であるといえます。
“Fishing-related industries always have been the backbone of our economy”, said Iceland’s fisheries minister, Einar Kristinn Gudfinnsson. And with the economic crisis, “in relative terms fisheries will grow in importance”.
In the last few years, hardy Iceland was seduced by quick money. Financial deregulation, a stock market boom and a surging krona helped Icelandic entrepreneurs go on a global buying spree. A new elite of super-rich Icelanders flew around in private jets and drove Hummers and Range Rovers through the streets of Reykjavik, a rough-edged fishing port turned gleaming capital city. One tycoon even flew Elton John to Iceland to perform at his 50th birthday party last year.
Jobs were plentiful in the booming economy. Hundreds of Eastern Europeans have moved to Iceland to work in fish processing plants – dirty, smelly jobs Icelanders no longer wanted.
アイスランドが好況に沸く一方で、漁業は汚い、くさいなどの理由から従事者が減った結果、漁業関連の人材が不足し、外国からの労働者が大量に流入したわけです。
“We couldn’t keep them going without foreign labour because the Icelanders were too busy working in the banks”, said Sigurdur Sverisson, spokesman for the Federation of Icelandic Fishing Vessel Owners.
外国人労働者はいまや漁業関連業界にとっては必要不可欠な存在となっていたのだそうです。
When the credit crunch hit, Iceland’s high-flying banks were left struggling to service debts that amounted to nine times the country’s GDP. In early October, the three main commercial banks were taken over by the government as they collapsed.
しかし状況は一変、銀行は破綻に追い込まれ、政府の管理下におかれることになります。
Layoffs that began in the banks have rippled through the economy as many businesses struggle to survive. Many Icelanders have found themselves unable to pay car loans and mortgages.
経営側が生き残りを懸け、今の日本に見られるような人員削減の嵐が巻き起こったわけです。
Now, Sverisson said, “people are lining up for jobs in the fishing industry”.
On Reykjavik’s wharves, forklift vehicles scurry about unloading crates of cod, monkfish and other species in dockside warehouses. Within hours much of the day’s catch will have been sold at an internet auction and headed for Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, the US and other countries.
This year’s season is good. Fish are plentiful, and prices for many species are high.
一方で世界の食卓を支える一次産業では需要が抑えられることは少なく、漁獲量は空前の域に達しています。捕獲された魚はオークションで取引され、イギリスやスペイン、オランダやアメリカなどといった国々に輸出されているそうです。
But Sverisson sees a new threat to Iceland’s fishing industry – the European Union. The economic crisis has persuaded many Icelanders the country should join the 27-nation bloc and adopt the euro single currency. Sverisson says that would mean signing up to the EU’s common fisheries policy.
しかし、この好況は統一通貨ユーロを導入していないからです。世界経済の冷え込みによる雇用不安が広がった結果、アイスランド国民の間でも独自の通貨に代えて欧州27カ国が参加するユーロの導入に肯定的な考えが広まりつつあります。仮にユーロ圏に参入したとすると、漁業界でも他国との調整が必要となり、今のように自由な価格設定ができなくなるというわけです。この点は日本とは状況が異なりますね。
“By joining the European Union we would not have the controlling rights of the stocks anymore”, he said.
For now, fishermen are the poster boys of Iceland’s long slog to economic revival. Sigurgeirsson, 34, has been at sea for 10 years and is bemused by his industry’s new image. He says fishermen are being painted as a cross between national saviours and fat-cats who haul in big salaries from bumper catches.
Trawler crews spend as many as 200 days a year at sea – up to 40 days at a stretch – and receive a share of the catch, so their income fluctuates. Sigurgeirsson says that for every boom year there is another when crews make only the statutory minimum wage.
“On the news they are talking about us now. They say we are making money for the nation”, said Sigurgeirsson, sitting amid coiled ropes and weathered waterproofs below decks of the trawler Faxi. “We have been doing that (all along).
“Now everybody is saying ‘We’re in the same boat.’ Well, I wasn’t on the boat with the bankers. I wasn’t invited to the birthday party with Elton John. I was in the North Atlantic ocean”.—AP
先に漁業をやめ経済界、金融界に入った人は、世界恐慌のような現実を突きつけられた結果、漁業者も経済、金融人も同じ船に乗っており運命をともにすべきだと主張する、一方で漁業者は、もうかるとされ漁業を捨てた人々とは苦難を共有しておらず、都合がいいときだけ勝手なことを言うなと主張する・・・よくある論争です。
(Iceland sees its future in fish, http://www.dawn.com/2008/12/18/int21.htm, viewed January 8, 2009)
後半の話は統一通貨を導入する欧州圏固有の問題なので記事を紹介するだけにとどめたいと思いますが、前半の一次産業の重要性については日本も共感すべきところがあるのではないでしょうか。
雇用のミスマッチというリスクを可能な限り回避しながら、どのような職でも一生懸命働きたいという派遣労働者に一次産業の仕事を紹介し、高齢化に伴う人手不足で苦しむ漁業者や農家の支援、活性化を図ることを地方自治体、ひいては国レベルで後押しすれば、日本の一次産業振興と雇用の創出を同時に図ることにつながり、地方の活性化を実現することができるのではないでしょうか。直面する課題も少なくはないと思いますが、日本経済の冷え込みを打破する解決策のひとつとして提案をしたいと思います。
> shinさん
Nice!をありがとうございます。
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