WORLD COUNCIL OF WHALERS
PO Box 291, Brentwood Bay BC Canada V8M 1R3
Phone / Fax 001 250 652-8352
www.worldcouncilofwhalers.com
MEDIA RELEASE
23 July 2001
Whale Watching Economically Risky, Study Shows
The chairman of the Canadian-based World Council of Whalers, Chief Tom Mexsis Happynook, said today the recently
completed economic analysis by Drs Moyle and Evans indicates that the alleged financial benefits of whale watching are
greatly exaggerated and ignore the real benefits derived from sustainable whaling and the consumption of customary
foods.
Chief Mexis Happynook said New Zealand bio-economist Dr Brendan Moyle and his Canadian colleague Dr Mike Evans found
that proposing whaling nations put aside centuries-old traditions and instead revert only to whale watching operations
not only ignores dietary-related needs but is extremely risky economically. (Their analysis, “A bioeconomic and
socio-economic analysis of whale-watching with attention given to associated direct and indirect costs”, can be obtained
through the World Council of Whalers’ Website on www.worldcouncilofwhalers.com)
“Although whale watching can provide some financial benefits to local communities, the health benefits from providing
affordable and nutritional food cannot be so lightly dismissed,” Chief Mexsis Happynook said.
“Health authorities recognize the direct link between the harmful effects of consuming such fatty foods as imported
mutton flaps and poultry parts, and the current alarming rates of diseases such as high cholesterol, diabetes, heart
disease and stroke throughout the small island nations of the South Pacific.”
“The New Zealand and Australian governments’ actions at the International Whaling Commission continue to be directed and
focused on blocking any resumption of sustainable whaling, and their latest tool is the questionable claim that whale
watching provides maximum benefit to all peoples. They have taken this message to the small island nations of the South
Pacific who understandably are looking for ways of improving their economic circumstances.
However, whale watching does not improve the nutritional and dietary needs and the health status of Indigenous Peoples
and places developing South Pacific Island nations in a vulnerable position economically,” Chief Mexsis Happynook said.
(more to follow)
“The proposal for a whale sanctuary in the South Pacific disregards the traditional cultures and the serious health
needs of the people of some South Pacific Island nations. New Zealand and Australia are acting irresponsibly by actively
pushing these island nations to cease pursuit of their traditional health by eating traditional foods and instead
establish whale-watching operations.”
“This push towards whale watching was most evident at the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) meeting
in Apia, Samoa, in April and also makes up a significant part of New Zealand’s and Australia’s renewed sanctuary bid at
this year’s IWC annual meeting in London,” said Chief Mexsis Happynook.
“The New Zealand government appears to ignore the fact that whales are a renewable resource, and that some whales can be
utilized for food while allowing those same stocks to flourish and increase in numbers. While the New Zealand and
Australian governments appear to believe that whale watching and whaling cannot occur in the same nation, it is a
demonstrated fact that both activities take place in all whaling nations today.”
“The World Council of Whalers will continue to work in solidarity with coastal whaling peoples of the South Pacific, the
Caribbean, and throughout the world in opposition to any whale sanctuary that lacks a credible conservation
justification,” he said.
“It’s unfortunate that New Zealand defines the term ‘conservation’ as meaning ‘total protection’ when the world
standard, as found in the World Conservation Strategy, Agenda 21 and the Convention on Biological Diversity, for
example, defines it as ‘sustainable use’.”
The World Council of Whalers is an international, non-governmental organisation that includes whale users, both
aboriginal and non-aboriginal. The Council’s recent assembly in Nelson was attended by more than 250 delegates from 21
countries, including parliamentarians and government officials, community leaders, whalers and representatives from
whaling communities, researchers, and students.
ENDS
For more information and interviews with Chief Tom Mexsis Happynook, contact Glenn Hema Inwood on 021 498 010 or at the
Millennium Gloucester Hotel,
London, 0044 20 7373 6030
A BIOECONOMIC AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF WHALE-WATCHING, WITH ATTENTION GIVEN TO ASSOCIATED DIRECT AND INDIRECT
COSTS
By Dr Brendan J. Moyle (Massey University, New Zealand), and
Dr Mike Evans (University of Alberta, Canada)
(A full copy of this report can be obtained on www.worldcouncilofwhalers.com)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Whale-watching has been promoted as an economic activity that when combined with a ban on whale hunting, maximises
economic benefits to participating communities.
This argument is criticised for the following reasons. First, the benefits of whale-watching are inflated. This
inflation results from using industry turnover, rather than economic surplus, as a measure of benefit. Economic studies
of whale- watching that use appropriate methodologies generate estimates about one order of magnitude lower than
whale-watching reports using turnover. Such inflation is exacerbated by the practise of using industry inputs as
benefits rather than as costs, and including indirect expenditures that can be attributed to non-whale attributes of the
site, thus assuming whales, rather than, e.g., tourism infrastructure or prior values, induces such expenditures.
Whale-watching proponents often claim that the purported benefits of whale-watching are conservative estimates of
economic benefit because multipliers are excluded from their assessments. However, multipliers should be excluded on
methodological grounds. Furthermore, the environmental and social costs of whale-watching are not properly incorporated
into proponents’ analyses. In such studies, the benefits of whale hunting are systematically under-estimated by using
market price as a proxy for value, while ignoring the various social (including health) and cultural benefits that are
found in whaling societies, quite apart from the commercial values of hunting.
(more to follow)
It is argued that for countries that are peripheral to the core whale-watching nations in North America, Japan, and
Australasia, the industry has a Hotelling structure. In Hotelling-markets, travel distance is the principal factor
affecting demand; the distance of peripheral sites from the core means that the growth in whale-watching is bypassing
such sites. This is demonstrated in the case of Vava’u in Tonga.
This strongly suggests that countries on the periphery with an interest in whale hunting would, in economic or
developmental terms, be ill-advised to permit whale-watching activity to replace whale hunting. The profitability of a
whale-watching-alone strategy involves several risks, including competition resulting from expansion of whale-watching
activity at sites closer to the core whale-watching areas.
It is demonstrated that the economic returns from whale resources can be maximised by retaining a whale hunting option
for cases where resource populations rise above that necessary for conservation or tourism activities.
By eliminating this option for the prospect of uncertain gains from whale-watching, such countries expose themselves to
predictable economic and social shocks. It is demonstrated that in typical “peripheral” (in relation to the “core” whale
watch areas) countries, such as South Pacific island-nations, the removal of marine resource-exploitation options has
exacerbated socio-economic shocks such as the spread of diet-related non-communicable diseases. Such peripheral
countries have a lesser ability to absorb such shocks, hence the elimination of hunting options is an imprudent risky
development route.
It is concluded that the case for substituting whale-watching for whale hunting is based on poor economic analysis,
while retaining the option for whale hunting is prudent and provides an important social and economic buffer for such
peripheral nations.
A full copy of this report can be found on the
World Council of Whalers’ website
http://www.worldcouncilofwhalers.com