Coastal Area 13101 Adjacent waters of Ise and Shima

Basic Information References

Reason(s) for selection Criteria

Characteristics References

These are the waters off the coasts of Ise and Shima, extending to the islands in the southern Irako Channel and to Kumano. This typical ria coastline is home to deep inlets including Ago Bay and Gokasho Bay as well as numerous large and small islands. It is a flourishing cultured-pearl district and abundant turban shell, abalone and others are caught here as well. The vicinity of the Shima Peninsula is a shore zone dominated by complex mixtures of sea grass and seaweed, and the vicinity of Cape Daio is home to expanses of Eisenia arborea, Ecklonia cava, Sargassum giganteifolium (now the southern limit since this species became extinct from Kawaminami, Miyazaki Prefecture in 1995) and others, as well as sea jungles. Tasoura is home to sea jungles in which Sargassum segii (a specialty of the Shima Peninsula) are distributed and Sargassum spathulophyllum (which grows only in Shimoda and Tasoura), while Oshima is home to distributions of Sargassum sagamianum (which grows only on the east coast of the Kii Peninsula; this is thought to be its largest community), Gelidium elegans and others. In Gokasho Bay annual eel grass (smaller than in other habitats), Chorda filum (a rare community formed on the Pacific coast) and others are distributed (Ministry of the Environment, 2001). The vicinity of Ise and Shima also is important as the waters in front of a loggerhead turtle spawning ground, and this entire region also is an important feeding ground for green turtle (Wakabayashi, 1994; Taniguchi and Kamezaki, 2011). Centered on Oshima are the waters of a breeding colony of Japanese murrelet (an IUCN endangered species) (BirdLife International, 2012).