Economic Analysis of Demand Behaviour Related to Nature Conservation:A Case of Shiretoko National Trust

Abstract

Unlike the United States, natural parks including national parks in Japan are designated without affecting the private ownership of the lands in question and consequently in most natural park areas multiple use of land dominates. In recent years, several private organization as well as local government successfully initiate the movements to collect donation from citizens all over Japan in order to procure and replant private lands in natural park areas. One representative “National Trust” movement is the one started by the town of Shari since 1977 in order to purchase and replant some of the deforested land in Shiretoko National Park, which were originally cultivated and later deserted by farm settlers and some of which were bought by land developers. As of March 1984, 18409 persons donated the total sum of 187 million yen and about 68 percent of the land, 473 ha, has been purchased by the town, where the unit of donation is 8000 yen and corresponds to the price of 100m² of the land.
In this paper, economic aspects of donors' concern for nature conservation are analyzed, theoretically and empirically. On theoretical sides, we first reviewed the concept of option value based on the recent studies of Freeman III (1984) and Smith (1983), and then made a qualitative analysis of current consumption vs nature conservation in terms of an optimal control type model.
On an empirical side, data on people's concern for nature conservation are gathered in two routes, one is a questionaire to donors of Shiretolo National Trust, the other the data related to actual behaviour which are the number of visits by donors of different regions to the reforestation festival held every year by the town of Shari. Based on these data, economic rationale for giving donation to Shiretoko National Trust are clarified within the theoretical framework.