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Sanriku Fukkō NP, Aomori / Iwate / Miyagi
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Flowering shoots of tachi-amamo in Iwate’s Funakoshi Bay reached 7 m—described by researchers as the world’s longest seagrass. Unlike seaweed, this underwater giant is a flowering plant.
Shizugawa Bay became Japan’s first Ramsar-listed wetland for seaweed beds in 2018. The 5,793-ha site lies in the national park’s marine park zone—international recognition for an underwater forest.
At Minamisanriku’s spring shore-opening, only households with fishing rights may gather wild funori, hijiki and matsumo. Fresh funori is deep green; as it takes up moisture, it can turn reddish and still be delicious.
Shizugawa Bay has four distinct underwater habitats: kelp, arame, sargassum and eelgrass beds. Surveys have recorded more than 220 seaweed and seagrass species there, providing food and habitat for over 600 marine species.
Cold-water ma-kombu and warm-water arame grow side by side in Shizugawa Bay, where the Oyashio, Kuroshio and Tsugaru Warm Current all have influence. Their meeting helps create an unusually varied underwater forest.
Sanriku’s wakame-farming story has two beginnings: fishers in Iwate’s Okirai Bay began natural-seed cultivation around 1950 after wakame grew on oyster rafts; in Onagawa, Otsuki Yoshiro succeeded with raft-based cultivation in 1953.
Each winter, 100–400 black brant spend the season in Shizugawa Bay, feeding on eelgrass and green algae. The underwater beds nourish not just fish and shellfish, but also these rare visiting geese.
Early surveys after the 2011 tsunami found a striking shift in Tokura, Shizugawa Bay: eelgrass declined on soft seabed, while deposited rocks and rubble gave kelp and other rock-loving seaweeds a foothold where they had not grown before.
