The Yambaru Forest in the northern part of Okinawa's main island was in turmoil between the World Heritage Site concept and the issue of its return to Japan (late 1990s)
The Yambaru Forest in the northern part of Okinawa's main island was an important area of biodiversity, with its subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forests and a high concentration of endemic species. In the late 1990s, the Environment Agency attempted to have the area designated as a World Heritage candidate, but more than half of the 7,800 hectares of forest area was included in the U.S. Northern Military Training Area, which restricted research and management. The turning point came in 1996, when the SACO final report indicated that approximately 53% of the training area should be returned to the U.S. by 2002, which made the wide-area ecological survey and the establishment of a protected area a reality, and raised expectations for the World Heritage Site.
However, the interests of the local government, the Forestry Agency, and the Environment Agency intersected over the use of the land after its return. The local government, which wanted to promote tourism and revitalize the forestry industry, and the environmental administration, which wanted to create a contiguous nature reserve, did not agree on the same policies, and the coordination became complicated. Internationally, with the entry into force of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the preservation of endemic species has been emphasized, and the IUCN has recognized Yanbaru as an area of interest. The IUCN also recognized Yambaru as an area of interest. Web materials still pointed out that the treatment of the returned land would determine the success or failure of registration as a World Heritage site, and this was a multilayered issue involving the economies of the municipalities that had returned the nature conservation bases.
No comments:
Post a Comment