Spatial analysis of the value of whaling and whale conservation in Japan
Mihoko Wakamatsu12*, Hiroki Nakamura2, and Shunsuke Managi1

1. Introduction
In 1946, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was established to support the orderly
development of the whaling industry by conserving whale stocks. The IWC’s own ScientificCommittee has never recommended a moratorium on all commercial whaling, but it has been
adopted in 1982, when anti-whaling has become a new international norm with an increasing spreadof environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Some countries, now a minority at IWC
meetings, continue to practice whaling, and more than one thousand whales were hunted in 2013
alone.
One of the major whaling countries, Japan, does not currently engage in commercial whaling
but seeks to expand whaling, which has resulted in its withdrawal from IWC in 2018. As theimportance of whale meat in Japanese diets has declined, the rationale for whaling has shifted fromfood security and sustainable use to cultural identity and cultural diversity, which may not beuniversally shared amongst the public.
In this study, we examine spatial difference in the value of whaling in Japan. We hypothesizethat local difference in the consumption of whale meat and culture generates a spatial disparity in thevalue of whaling. We capture the value of whaling measured as willingness to pay to continue
Japan’s whaling for those who support whaling and willingness to pay to abandon Japan’s whaling
for those who disapprove whaling. We also examine how the difference is brought about, and inparticular, we consider various environmental attitudes, the familiarity of whales, and the knowledgeof whale and whale management as well as demographics.
2. Materials and methods
We conducted web-based surveys in Japan in February 2016. The candidates were recruited
through existing online panel of a local research company. Upon initial contact in the recruitment
process, potential respondents were asked to participate in the survey titled “Survey on theEnvironment and Marine Life”; the title did not mention the subject of whaling to avoid possible
selection bias. Candidates were pre-screened to ensure that the sample distributions approximated1

Urban Institute and Department of Urban and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering,
Kyushu University2Faculty of Commerce, Chuo University*
Corresponding author: wakamatsu@doc.kyushu-u.ac.jp

the distributions of the general population with respect to gender, age, and residential region. The
final sample contains 5,100 respondents.
Stated preference valuation techniques were employed to measure the total value of whales. A
hypothetical market was established for: (1) WTP of Japanese households to abandon Japan’s
whaling, and (2) WTP for Japanese households to continue

Fig. 1a Hot/Cold spots for whalingwhaling activities. The WTP values of (1) and (2) werecalculated using the sub-samples of anti- and pro-whaling
respondents, who constituted 27% and 73% of the full sample,respectively. For WTP calculations, a payment card was used
to collect the data.
3. Preliminary Results
To identify spatial heterogeneity for WTP to continue
whaling and WTP to discontinue whaling in Japan, theGetis-Ord 𝐺"∗ statistic is calculated and mapped (Fig. 1). The
distance for the 𝐺"∗ statistic is derived by iteratively
estimating the global Moran’s I for each incremental distance
between 1 and 50 km, and the distance that attained thehighest z score is chosen. The results from the spatial
clustering show that the value of whaling as well as whale
conservation in Japan has spatial autocorrelation and spatial
heterogeneity is significant. In particular, the value of whalingis high in Kyushu region but the hot spots for whale
conservation concentrates in Shizuoka prefecture and the
middle of Japan.
The GWR model is used to further examine various
determinants of the support/disapproval of whaling. Our
preliminary results suggest that for the value of whaling being
female and whether considering protecting endangered species
as important are both positively related in the western Japanand negatively related in the eastern Japan and a similar
spatial pattern was observed in the value of whale
conservation for protecting endangered species and income.

Fig. 1b Hot/Cold spots for whale conservation