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 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 has attracted international attention as a treasure house of biodiversity with its extensive subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forests and high density 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 occupied by the U.S. Northern Military Training Area, which restricted research and management of the area. In 1996, the SACO final report indicated that 53% of the training area should be returned to the U.S. by 2002, which raised expectations for the site to be registered as a World Heritage site.

However, the interests of the local government, the Forestry Agency, and the Environment Agency were mixed over how to handle the returned land. It was not easy to coordinate land use between the local government, which wanted to promote tourism and revitalize the forestry industry, and the environmental administration, which demanded a contiguous protected area. In the 1990s, with the entry into force of the Convention on Biological Diversity, interest in the conservation of endemic species increased internationally, and the IUCN was closely watching Yanbaru as an important area. Web materials pointed out the uncertainties and political issues involved in the post-return conservation plan, and the Yambaru forest was a symbolic example of the multi-layered problems of a nature conservation base and the social economy of the restored region.