“Bridging Japan and Czech by Bilateral Collaboration in Fisheries Sciences"

Abstract
“Fisheries Science” has been regarded as an integrated system of multi-disciplinary studies on aquatic environment, biology of diverse aquatic organisms, technology or engineering from fishing to post-harvest processing, socio-economy, local development and international cooperation for sustainable production of safe foods from ocean, lake, river and inland water systems. These multi-disciplinary studies in Fisheries Science provide us with opportunity to improve welfare and health of human-being on the Earth. Hokkaido University (HU) was established as the Sapporo Agricultural College in 1876, only eight years after the Meiji Restoration. The first lectures on Fish and Fisheries had begun since 1880. Probably, this was the one of the pioneer lectures as a higher education of fisheries science in the world. In 1907, the HU established the School of Fishery, which has latter developed to the Faculty of Fisheries Sciences. Before the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Japan-Czech academic exchanges were generally difficult due to the presence of so-called “iron curtain”. Now, the time has come to substantiate and promote Japan-Czech collaboration by active academic exchange in the field of the fisheries science. From November 2009, the new bridging program has been started on the sturgeon biology by the JSPS fellowship for the Czech researcher.

Introduction
Fishery is an important social system including all the sectors from production on fishing grounds and/or aquaculture farms to consumers through post-harvest processing, distribution and retailing. The global population is rapidly expanding and the strong demand for food products from the sea and the inland water is also increasing. However, most of the major fishing grounds have already reached their maximum production, and thus capture fisheries is difficult to satisfy the growing world demands for aquatic food.  Therefore, aquaculture is rapidly expanding to compensate the gap between supply and demand in most parts of the world. Production of aquatic food is indispensable for survival and welfare of human-being on the Earth, but there are many current issues in fisheries and aquaculture: impact of various human-activities on marine and coastal ecosystem, decrease of fisheries resources due to over-fishing, incidence of red tide due to eu-trophication, disruption of Mangrove by aquaculture farm construction, emission of large volume of CO2 at squid fishing, disposal of approximately 30% of fishery products and about 50% of edible parts, etc.
     “Sustainable Fisheries” is important concept for global citizens in 21st century and must be achieved by responsible production and utilization of aquatic products based on scientific knowledge from intensive research and educational practices. Fisheries Science is an integrated system of multi-disciplinary studies on aquatic environment, biology of aquatic organisms, technology or engineering from fishing to post-harvest processing, marine policy and governance, socio-economics of aquatic products related industries, local development, international cooperation and so on. Fisheries science is required to understand principles controlling aquatic ecosystems for sustainable production as well as to unravel various unique characteristics of aquatic organisms for their efficient utilization and application.
     The purpose of this paper is to introduce current situation and near-future perspectives of bilateral collaboration in fisheries science between Japan and Czech, especially between Faculty of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University (HUFFS), Hakodate and Research Institute of Fish Culture and Hydrobiology (RIFCH), Vodnany, as a promising partnership.

Pioneers of Fisheries Sciences in Sapporo Agricultural College
Sapporo Agricultural College (SAC) was established in 1876, only eight years after the Meiji Restoration, when “samurai” era was changed to modern era in Japan. This SAC was the higher educational organization that issued the first diploma of “bachelor” in Japan (Figure 1) and later evolved to Hokkaido Imperial University in 1918 and then, renamed as Hokkaido University in 1947 a few years after the World War II. Hokkaido University has played an important role in the discovery of rationales which are new to science as well as in the contribution to higher education under school motto or basic philosophies of education and research, namely “Frontier Spirit”, “Global Perspectives”, “All-round Education” and “Practical Learning”. Now, Hokkaido University is a mainstay comprehensive university that places importance on its graduate school and has about 2100 faculty members, 1900 administrators, 12000 undergraduate students, 6300 graduate students in 12 undergraduate schools, 19 graduate schools and other facilities including various institutes, centers, museum, and library.
     In the beginning of SAC, the first vice-chancellor was Prof. William Smith Clark, Ph.D, LL.D., invited from the Massachusetts Agricultural College (MAS), USA. Almost all the other professors were also invited from prestigious universities in advanced European countries and USA to teach various fields of agriculture and related sciences and technology. In the end of 19th century, however, educational subjects about fisheries have not been established even in Europe and USA, although some societies of fishery-related sciences and administration organization to control and manage fisheries resources and fishing practices were established in lines with the demands from academic, governmental and industrial sectors. For example, Bavarian Society for Freshwater Fisheries, German Society for Fisheries, and American Society for Fisheries Science were established in 1855, 1856 and 1870, respectively. And then, the Bureau of Fisheries was organized both in England and Scotland in 1882. In USA, the first salmon hatchery was built in 1873 to enhance resources by release of artificial seeds. As the record of the oceanographic expedition, the HMS Challenger reports were published in the Great Britain. Although the new Japanese government absolutely ignored a significance of higher education and systematic researches on fisheries, the first lecture on “Fisheries Science” was made as a part of Zoology in 1880 by Prof. John Cutter, who was a medical doctor studied in the Harvard Medical School after getting the degree in MAC. He was deeply impressed by abundant fauna and flora in nature, especially in sea-shore, rivers, and lakes in Hokkaido Island since the first day when he landed and noticed importance of sciences regarding fish and fisheries to develop the last frontier in Japan, Hokkaido. A series of his lecture contained life history, feeding behavior, economical value, artificial hatching, transportation and acclimation of important fish species such as salmon, cod, herring, mackerel, etc. It is supposed that Prof. Cutter recognized that his lecture was the pioneer one for systematic studies on fish and fisheries in Japan (probably in the world), because he later told that “This is, I understand, the first school in the Empire to afford instructions upon the most important subject of fish and fisheries”. Many excellent students joined his lectures or were influenced by his learning. One of the student, Kanzo Uchimura (1861-1930), who studied the embryonic development of abalone as a graduation research and later became a famous philosopher, religionist, educationist, pacifist as well as a first fisheries scientist, made an address in public under the title of “Fisheries as Science” on the occasion of commencement ceremony of the SAC, in 1881. As other students, we could list up following famous names: Inazo Nitobe (1862-1933), agricultural economist, vice secretary general of the League of Nations, the author of “Bushido: The Soul of Japan”; Kingo Miyabe (1860-1951), the first Professor of Botany, SAC and later in Hokkaido Univ. and studied about various plant species on the land and in the sea around northern sphere; Kazutaka Itoh (1859-1929), the first director of the fisheries section in the Hokkaido Prefectural Government, who built the first salmon hatchery in Japan and contributed to the development of fisheries industries.

History of the Faculty of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University
In 1907, the direct precursor of the present Faculty of Fisheries Sciences was newly established as the School of Fishery attached to SAC. Meanwhile, this school became to the subsidiary school of the Agricultural College, Tohoku Imperial University, Sapporo and was renamed again as the School of Fisheries, Hokkaido Imperial University in 1918. This school moved to a port city, Hakodate and then became new independent school, Hakodate College of Fisheries in 1935, while the Department of Fisheries with graduate school master and doctorate programs was newly established within the Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido Imperial University, Sapporo in 1940. In 1949, after the World War II, Hakodate College of Fisheries and Department of Fisheries, Faculty of Agriculture were combined to build new Faculty of Fisheries, Hokkaido University, which evolved to the present Faculty of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University (HUFFS), including master and doctorate programs in two divisions (Marine Bio-resource and Environmental Science; Marine Life Science) of the graduate school and four departments (Marine Biology; Applied Marine Science; Aquaculture Life Science; Marine Bioresource Chemistry) of the undergraduate school. The on-board research and practical education have been carried out since the construction of 1st generation training ship “Oshoro-maru” in 1909 (The present “Oshoro-maru IV” was commissioned in 1983).
Over the past 100 years the more than 17000 students who have graduated from the Faculty as B.Sc., M.Sc., or Ph.D. have gone on to contribute to various related fields as professors in universities, professional researchers and/or engineers in national, prefectural and private institutions, bureaucrats in central and local governments, executives of private industrial sectors in various enterprises, teachers in middle school, and so on. At the same time, the Faculty members have contributed to the basic and applied research of aquatic organisms. For example, the oceanographic phenomenon of “marine snow” was discovered by under-sea expedition using a primitive bathyscaphe “Kuroshio” (Figure 2), description of more than 200 new fish species, and the world’s first artificial hatching of the eel based on reproductive physiology.

Scientific collaboration with Czech scientists before and after the Velvet Revolution
The first request card from Czech scientist, Dr. Otomar Linhart, the present dean of the Faculty of Fisheries and Water Protection, University of South Bohemia, to the author is shown in Figure 3. The date of this card was January 14th, 1987. In addition to this request card, there were several requests per year from Czech scientists to exchange reprints of scientific contributions in 1980’s. However, at this time, it was very difficult for Japanese scientists to communicate with those in Eastern European countries due to the presence of so-called “iron curtain”.
     After corruption of communism in Eastern European countries and territories of the former Soviet Union and successful achievement of the Velvet Revolution in Czech, the situation in scientific exchanges was drastically improved. By the recovery of democracy, the old fence was destroyed and the new bridge was built for scientific exchange between Eastern Europe and Japan. In the middle of 1990s, professors of HUFFS accepted a Polish biologist and a Bulgarian chemist as foreigner post-doctoral fellow by JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) programs to promote bilateral collaboration between Japan and Poland or Bulgaria in the field of immune-genetics of carp and analytical chemistry of marine algae. In 1999, the author visited Eastern Europe for the first time and joined the 1st International Conference on Loaches of the Genus Cobitis and Related Genera in Brno, Czech. The author also joined the 2nd International Conference on Loaches in Olstzyn, Poland, again in 2002 and accepted a Polish professor as JSPS fellow for short-term research in Japan in 2005. In 2006, the author took part in 3rd Loach Conference in Sibenik, Croatia, again and scientific network has been gradually constructed in the field of fish biology and others.
    Drastic turning point was the year 2007 when both the author and Dr. T. Fujimoto participated in “1st International Workshop on Biology of Fish Sperm” in Vodnany and since this time new bilateral collaboration has begun in fisheries science between FFSHU and RIFCH (Figure 4). This new partnership was strengthened by the visit of prof. O. Linhart on HUFFS, Hakodate Japan in October, 2007 (Figure 5) and the invitation of the graduate student in doctorate program at RIFCH, M. Psenicka for one-month training of micro-manipulation to HUFFS at November, 2008 was supported by the 21st Century COE program, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Technology (MEXT), Japan (Figure 6). In February, 2009, Dr. M. Flajhans, RIFCH, was invited to FFSHU for two weeks by the 21st Century COE program and provided four lectures on different topics (Figure 7). Since November, 2009, Dr. M. Psenicka has been awarded for the JSPS postdoctoral fellow 1-year program (~Oct. 2010) to study “Sturgeon germ cells and germ-line chimeras” in HUFFS.
As mentioned above, Japan (HUFFS) and Czech (RIFCH) collaboration has just started actually in fisheries science and related area. Establishment of the new Faculty of Fisheries and Protection of Water in the University of South Bohemia at September, 2009 is a good opportunity to accelerate international exchange and cooperation with HUFFS more tightly, because both institutions have the same mission,

Conclusion
As HUFFS and RIFCH have similar interests and same mission in research, education, industrial-academia-governmental cooperation and international collaboration in the field of fisheries sciences, academic exchanges have been substantiated and activated by mutual professor-visits and acceptance of graduate students and post-doctoral fellow program since 2007. Thus, it is expected that the exchange agreement may be treated between HUFFS and newly established Faculty of Fisheries and Protections of Waters, Univ. of South Bohemia (FFPE, USB) in very near future and FFRE, USB may become the first partner with HUFFS in Europe.

Acknowledgments
The author expresses his sincere gratitude to RNDr. Jan Zahradnik, Vice-Chancellor for Foreign Affairs and prof. Otomar Linhart, Dean of Faculty of Fisheries and Protection of Waters, and other related professors and administrators in the University of South Bohemia for his invitation to the excellent conference “University of South Bohemia in a World of Science without Borders”, on the Occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, at the Univ. of South Bohemia, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic, November 24-25, 2009 as well as to the Proceedings.

Legend of Figures
Figure 1.  The first diploma of “Bachelor of Agriculture” awarded to Mr. Kazutaka Itoh from Sapporo Agricultural College in the commencement ceremony at September, 1880. This is the first Bachelor degree awarded in Japan.

Figure 2.  A model of the bathyscaphe “Kuroshio” designed, developed and operated by Prof. N. Inoue (Applied Physics) to examine fisheries resources and environment mainly in 1960s (A). Cover page of the paper reported “marine snow” phenomenon from the expedition using “Kuroshio” by Prof. N. Suzuki (Marine Chemistry) (B). “Marine Snow” is an oceanographic term to describe the masses of micro-particles, dead plankton, minerals and other materials that whirl like clouds of snow in the sea.
Figure 3.  The first request card from Dr. O.Linhart, Czech in January, 1987.

Figure 4.  First visit of the author (K. Arai) and Dr. T. Fujimoto to RIFCH, Vodnany, Czech, for  the 1st International Workshop on Biology of Fish Sperm in Aug. 2007.

Figure 5. First visit of Prof. O. Linhart (RIFCH) to HUFFS, Hakodate, Japan in Oct. 2007 for academic exchanges.

Figure 6. Research visit of a graduate student, M. Psenicka to HUFFS, Hakodate, for his training of micro-manipulation and biotechnology: (A) Producing micro-needles under instruction by Dr. T. Fujimoto, (B) Sushi-bar snap with Prof. K. Arai, (C) His first microinjection of GFP into egg, (D) Poster session in 7th International Symposium organized by 21st Century COE Program, November 2008, Sapporo, Japan.