Dr. Takahiro Kubo
🇬🇧 Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science, University of Oxford
🇯🇵 National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES)
Contact:
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Address: 11a Mansfield Rd, Oxford OX1 3SZ, UK
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E-mail: kubo.takahiro (at) nies.go.jp
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Link of Social Media Services
About
Takahiro Kubo focuses on the economics and behaviour change concerning biodiversity conservation, and wildlife and tourism management. Takahiro obtained his BSc and MSc from Hokkaido University, Japan with Dr. Shoji (2010, 2012) and completed his PhD in Natural Resource Economics at Kyoto University, Japan in 2015, developed economic valuation approaches for wildlife and protected area management with Dr. Kuriyama. During his PhD, he was a visiting scholar at the Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology (REES), University of Alberta, Canada with Dr. Adamowicz (2013-2015).
Takahiro is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford and a research fellow at the University of Kent, funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), working on the project “Promotion of biodiversity conservation through changes in human behavior: Field experiments for policy evaluations” collaborated with Diogo Veríssimo. Takahiro is also a Senior Researcher at Biodiversity Division, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Japan.
Takahiro has expertise in economic valuation of ecosystem services and behaviour change to address sustainability challenges, including climate change, biodiversity conservation, environmental degradation, and resource scarcity. He is also interested in the incorporation of broad scientific knowledge into economic analysis and interdisciplinary approaches in conservation.
Key topics
Donation Behaviour
Financial shortages have caused biodiversity loss over the world. We have analyzed data concerning fundraising and crowdfunding in conservation to understand the success (and failure) determinants of the campaigns (e.g., Kubo et al. 2021). Furthermore, we are actively engaged in field experiments in collaboration with practitioners, and have shown the findings in national parks and online advertising campaigns (e.g., Kubo et al. 2018; Kubo et al. 2022).
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Funding : JSPS Overseas Research Fellowship
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Selected papers:
Wildlife Trade
Wildlife trade is causing biodiversity loss and infectious diseases; Japan is one of the largest importers of the products; however, there have been little scientific knowledge of actual public demand and markets. We have been working on understanding public interest, demand and human behaviour, for example, related to to ivory and other products concerning CITES (e.g., Thomas-Walters et al. 2022). We have also been applying state-of-the-art causal inference methods to evaluate domestic and international regulations on the exotic pet trade (e.g., Kubo et al. Preprint).
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Funding : NIES Internal Funding (PJ5)
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Selected:
Tourism & Recreation
Nature-based tourism is an industry that does not consume nature directly, but can link conservation outcomes to direct economic returns. We have conducted research on the calculation of economic benefits from wildlife viewing (e.g., Kubo et al. 2019) and how to balance tourism with the mitigation of conflicts with wildlife (e.g., Kubo et al. 2016).
In recent years, we have also been evaluating value of coastal areas (e.g., Kubo et al. 2020) and alpine areas (Mameno et al. 2022, highlighted in Nat.Clim.Change) under climate change by using mobile phone data and other new technologies.
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Funding : NIES Internal Funding (PJ5)
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Selected:
Food security & Conservation
In agro-ecosystems, there is a need to develop policies and measures achieving the multiple objectives of food production, biodiversity conservation and conflict mitigation.
We have been working on the development of marketing methods and mechanisms that simultaneously satisfy these objectives by elucidating the market mechanisms for "environmentally friendly" agricultural products (Mameno et al. 2021, 2023).
In collaboration with ecologists, I am also working on scenario analysis to understand the trade-offs between agricultural production and biodiversity conservation, and to balance wildlife conservation and conflict mitigation (Kubo & Shoji 2014).
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Funding: JSPS Scientific Research B / NIES Internal Funding (PJ1)
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Selected:
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Mameno, K., Kubo, T., Shoji, Y., 2021. Price premiums for wildlife-friendly rice: Insights from Japanese retail data. Cons. Sci. Prac. 3:e417. Link
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