Amami, Okinawa to re-nominate world heritage sites for review next summer

Amami, Okinawa to re-nominate world heritage sites for review next summer

Committee members confirming the re-nomination of Amami Oshima, Tokunoshima, the northern region of Okinawa Island, and Iriomote Island as a World Heritage Site. January 17, Tokyo


January 18, 2019 Ryukyu Shimpo

Tokyo – The Japanese government held the liaison conference for the governing body for the Convention concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage on January 17, where the confirmed that they would once again nominate, “Amami Oshima, Tokunoshima, the northern region of Okinawa Island, and Iriomote Island,” as a candidate for a World Heritage Site. The conference also will get the cabinet to sign off on January 22, and will submit a formal nomination to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre by the February 1 deadline.

The total land area of the nominated site is 42,698 hectares, a drastic expansion of the previous nomination, which covered 4,752 hectares. The northern region of Okinawa Island accounts for 7,721 hectares of the total land area, up from the previous nominations total of 2,588 hectares; Iriomote accounts for 20,822 hectares, up from 1,987 hectares; Amami Oshima accounts from 11,640 hectares, up from 96 hectares; and Tokunoshima accounts for 2,424 hectares, up from 81 hectares.

Based on the indication of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an advisory board to the World Heritage Committee, factors for the expansion include the addition of the area in the U.S. military’s Northern Training Area (NTA), which was recently returned to Japan, as well as the resolution of the nominated area needing to be as much as possible a small, contiguous area. The criteria has been refined to deal only with biodiversity.

For the remaining area of the NTA, both Japan and the U.S. have specified their comprehensive management plan for cooperation on information sharing as well as dealing with invasive species. Hereafter, each region will develop plans for use of the region for tourism as well as other land-use rules, as well as establish a plan for monitoring endangered species. Akira Shota, head of the Ministry of the Environment’s Natural Environment Agency, said, “I want to will submit the refined nomination along with a detailed field survey and explanation, and get the area added to the list.”

(English traslation by T&CT and Sam Grieb)

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