Let us begin by introducing the parties involved, directly or indirectly, in the Japanese research program. These are: Kyodo Senpaku, a private company; the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR); and the Fisheries Agency of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries. In the most basic terms, Kyodo Senpaku catches the whales, the ICR conducts the research, and the Fisheries Agency gives its official seal of approval and partially funds the research.

Kyodo Senpaku

To understand the role played by Kyodo Senpaku in the present research it is first necessary to explain the origin of this company.

In the 1961-62 season, when Japan's pelagic whaling was at its peak, seven fleets, each with its own factory ship, were active in the Antarctic. The fleets were operated by three of Japan's largest pelagic fishing companies, Nihon Suisan (Nissui), Taiyo and Kyokuyo, which were also the only companies licensed by the government to catch whales in the Antarctic. Accompanied by 86 catchers, 14 refrigerator ships, seven tankers and 36 freighters, this armada provided jobs for no fewer than 10,200 seafarers.

Quotas allocated by the IWC then began to fall, and the pelagic whaling industry entered a period of rapid contraction. In 1976 the three companies were forced to merge all their whaling interests into one company, Nihon Kyodo Hogei, with just three factory ships, 20 catchers, and a workforce of about 1,500.

In 1976-77 Kyodo Hogei made its first cruise with two factory ships, two refrigerator ships (one being the third factory ship) and 18 catchers. A further reduction in quotas resulted in the scrapping of two of the factory ships in 1977, and a further cutting of the workforce to about 700. From 1977 until 1987 (the last commercial cruise), one factory ship sailed, accompanied from 1978 by four catchers. In the final season of commercial whaling, the fleet provided jobs for just 308 seafarers.

In November 1987, with the end of commercial whaling, Kyodo Hogei was dissolved and 321 of its 507 remaining staff were transferred to a new company, Kyodo Senpaku. The remainder were laid off. The new company inherited one factory ship (the Nisshin Maru No. 3), three catchers, and eight ex-catchers (with guns, winches, etc. removed).

Technically speaking, Kyodo Senpaku is not a whaling company but a charterer of vessels and crews, yet its creation in 1987 was no coincidence for the same year saw the establishment of the ICR. Since then, Kyodo Senpaku has operated with just two clients, the ICR, and the Fisheries Agency which charters vessels for inspection of Japanese fishing fleets (Table 1). Kyodo Senpaku therefore depends, directly or indirectly, on the government for work. It is important to note, however, that on paper at least, the government has no control over the company either through ownership or the placement of personnel.

With regard to the former, Kyodo Senpaku is 100% privately owned. The major shareholders are the three companies formerly engaged in pelagic whaling, Nissui, Taiyo and Kyokuyo, each with 32%. The remaining 4% are held by three former coastal whaling companies, Del Mar (formerly Nitto Hogei), New Nippo (formerly Nihon Hogei), and Daido Suisan (formerly Hokuyo Hogei).

Kyodo Senpaku is also its own undisputed master in terms of personnel, a fact which may surprise those familiar with the term "Japan Inc.". This derogatory term is used by Westerners to describe the united front presented to the outside world by Japanese businesses and bureaucrats. Though this united front is frequently no more than a figment of a paranoid Western imagination, there is no denying that Japanese businesses and bureaucrats cooperate closely. Through this cooperation, businesses benefit in a number of ways such as having advance warning of new regulations or upcoming government contracts, and to this end, companies offer lucrative posts on their boards to retiring bureaucrats. This practice, known in Japan as "descent from heaven", is particularly common for retirees of the Finance Ministry. So given Kyodo Senpaku's dependency on the government for work, one might expect some of these bureaucratic transplants to be on their board too, but this is not the case. All board members at Kyodo Senpaku were formerly with Kyodo Hogei - there is no retired bureaucrat pulling strings from the inside.

This absence of "golden parachutes" can be attributed to two factors. Firstly, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries oversees more public and semi-public entities than any other ministry. Most ranking bureaucrats are offered positions at these entities on retirement and thus have less reason to seek employment in the private sector. And secondly, a fishing company stands to gain far less from having a retired bureaucrat on its staff than, say, a securities company would gain from employing a retiree of the Finance Ministry. Thus we find ex-bureaucrats are scarce on the boards of Kyodo Senpaku's shareholders too: as of June 1991, board members of Nissui, Taiyo and Kyokuyo totaled 51, and of these just two (one each for Nissui and Taiyo) were formerly with the Fisheries Agency.

Table 1: Kyodo Senpaku Fleet on Founding (Nov. 1987) and Today

Institute of Cetacean Research

The ICR was founded in 1987 as a zaidan hojin - a non-profit organisation funded by donations. Start-up costs were met by Kyodo Senpaku (about 1,250 mil. yen; $9.6 mil.), and members of the public (about 50 mil. yen; $385,000), with all donations being tax-deductible. In addition a fund was set up into which the Fisheries Agency paid the sum of 346.2 million yen ($2.7 mil.) for the remainder of FY 1987. Since then, incomes have derived from three sources: an annual allocation from the Fisheries Agency of some 500 million yen (Table 2), non-deductible donations from small companies and private individuals (but not from Kyodo Senpaku), and the proceeds from the sale of by-products (or "products") of the research.

Total staff fluctuates in the low 20s and consists in the main of biologists recruited from universities and other institutes, and office clerks. Ex-whalers and reassigned bureaucrats are not entirely absent, however, with two administrators having been recruited from Kyodo Hogei and two from the Fisheries Agency. Among the latter is the institute's director- general, Dr. Fukuzo Nagasaki. Though this is strictly speaking a "golden parachute" appointment, his presence is hardly surprising considering the ICR comes under the authority of the Fisheries Agency.

The principal function of the ICR is to conduct research on Southern Hemisphere minke whales, for which purpose it charters vessels and crews from Kyodo Senpaku. However, the institute is also involved in other forms of cetacean research. It is, for example, responsible for administering Japan's contribution to a series of sighting surveys conducted under the auspices of the IWC known as the Southern Hemisphere Minke Whale Assessment Cruises, which have been conducted annually since 1978 (aka IWC/IDCR cruises as they were launched as part of the so-called International Decade of Cetacean Research). These cruises are primarily concerned with counting, do not involve the taking of whales, and receive no financial support from the whaling industry.

Fisheries Agency

The Fisheries Agency is the government body responsible for licensing and monitoring any taking of cetaceans in Japanese waters or by Japanese vessels, whether for commercial or scientific purposes. It is also the major source of funds for research on cetaceans, but funds only research which at some future time is anticipated to bring benefits to industry and to the people of Japan.

Shown in Table 2 is a breakdown of the major flows of funds from the Fisheries Agency for cetacean research in recent years. About 950 million yen ($7.3 mil.) is allocated annually to three projects: research on Antarctic minkes, sighting surveys in the Southern Hemisphere and North Pacific, and a survey of Dall's porpoises. Some of these funds are allocated to the National Research Institute of Far Seas Fisheries, but the bulk goes for work contracted to the ICR, i.e. its own program and the IWC/IDCR cruises. The latter, while ostensibly funded by the IWC, are in reality paid for almost entirely by the government of Japan which (through the ICR) charters two or three ships and crews from Kyodo Senpaku for two months each year and donates them to the IWC. Until recently, the USSR also contributed one vessel, but no other nation has made a financial contribution of any significance.

The bias in allocation of funds towards Antarctic minkes is a clear indication of what the government sees as the potential of this stock for commercial exploitation. It is not in the nature of the Fisheries Agency to fund research exclusively aimed at, say, blue whales, for which the prospect of resuming commercial harvesting any time soon (if ever) is nil. Strictly speaking, therefore, in the analysis which comes later in this report of the financial profitability or otherwise of the ICR's research program, one should include in the expenses column the cost of the IWC/IDCR cruises, as from the viewpoint of the Fisheries Agency the two research programs have the same broad objective. If this is done, of course, the overall cost of research on Antarctic minke whales vastly outweighs the income received from the sale of by-products, and any talk of profiteering from science becomes nonsense.

Table 2: Japanese Government Funding of Cetacean Research, FY1988-90 (IWC/43/23)

Subsidiation of Antarctic minke research (contracted to ICR)

Sighting surveys in S. Hemisphere (incl. IWC/IDCR) and N. Pacific/Okhotsk Sea (direct funding of National Research Institute of Far Sea Fisherirs or contracted to ICR)

Dall's porpoises survey since FY1989 (contracted to ICR)

Totals

* Exchange rate used is $ 1 = 130 yen

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