A court in Japan rejected a request by an Ainu indigenous people to reclaim control over salmon fishing in the river, a government official said on Thursday ( Apr 18 ).
The judge made the first ruling regarding aboriginal rights relating to Ainu people, who formerly resided both in the now-distant region of Russia and in what is now northern Japan.
Years of bias and forced assimilation are a part of Asian history, and until 2019 did Japan not lawfully recognize them as Aboriginal people.
Regardless of their ethnicity, Japan’s fish resources security law in principle prohibits people from catching mackerel in rivers.
However, the plaintiffs claimed years of established tradition in some of the rivers on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido, which had been a major source of income before a government crackdown in the 19th century, may have allowed them to be free.
A spokesman for the Sapporo district judge informed AFP that their claim had been overturned.
According to the current situation, Ainu individuals can only fish for salmon if Hokkaido’s government gives them permission to transfer their cultural identity, according to the plaintiffs.
In a complaint filed in 2020, they claimed that a 2007 UN declaration has led to an increase in worldwide trends toward the recognition of indigenous rights and personalities.
The presiding judge said that valley fish, even in a restricted manner, was hardly their “inherent” straight, public broadcaster NHK reported.
Raporo Ainu Nation’s plaintiff group, Hiromasa Sashima, had previously claimed that the case was about “fighting to get up rights taken from our Ainu ancestors.”
Following the decision, Sashima told investigators,” It was an undeniable fact that Ainu grandparents were making a living by fishing.
For decades, Ainu traded with Chinese people from the peninsula, but Japan’s royal government in 1869 seized Ainu lands and banned “barbarian” practices like cosmetic tattoos for the group’s women.
Ainu were forced to renounce classic hunting customs, adopt Japanese names, and practice Chinese hunting.
The four-year lawful war has seen regulators dismiss as “legally groundless” the plaintiffs ‘ calls for the restoration of hunting rights.
Regulators have also defended the current hunting laws as essential safeguards against the exploitation of crucial resources like salmon.