Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The World Natural Heritage system is currently even more popular than
biosphere reserves, and people in various places expect their beautiful sites to be
registered as a World Natural Heritage site. Additional registration for World
Natural Heritage is strict, and those submitting nominations have to wait many
years as there are many sites to be registered. The demands by people to have their
sites nominated for internationally authorized registration are expanding to include
other conservation sites, and biosphere reserves are now being watched carefully by
those desiring their conservation.
In Japan, there are so far three World Natural Heritage sites: Shiretoko Peninsula,
Shirakami Forest, and Yakushima Island. Shirakami is in the central mountainous
area of northern Honshu, and the beautiful inland
Fagus
forest is highly valued.
Shiretoko is a peninsula protruding eastward on the northeastern edge of Hokkaido;
its ecological features are similar to those of an island in that it is mostly surrounded
by sea. Drift ice is one of the most important elements of nature at Shiretoko.
Yakushima is a small island just south of Kyushu. The other location now in
tentative list of World Natural Heritage sites from Japan is the Ogasawara Islands,
the oceanic islands some 1,000 km south of Tokyo.
When additional World Natural Heritage registrations were discussed in
2003, the Japanese secretariat for the World Natural Heritage, under the Ministry
of the Environment, along with the Forestry Agency, undertook a systematic
survey of all the conservation areas nominated by central and/or local govern-
ment, and a large number of documents was presented to the selection commit-
tee, which used a completely open consultation process. After a careful survey,
the Shiretoko Peninsula, Ogasawara Islands, and Ryukyu Islands were placed at
the top of the list of candidates from Japan. Interestingly, all of these sites are
islands or island like.
As with the registration of additional World Natural Heritage sites, the choice of
candidates for registration of additional biosphere reserves is under discussion.
This process is also expected to use bottom-up-style screening to give regional
people a more general understanding of the reserves. To maintain the sustainable
use of each particular site, it is vitally important to ensure full collaboration among
decision makers from both central and local government as well as scientists, busi-
nesspeople, journalists, and local people. It is natural that collaborative discussions
should be held to list candidate conservation sites; this is also true in the case of
biosphere reserves. Many of these conservation sites are on land owned by local
people and these people should be allowed full access to information.
The first generation of biosphere reserves was registered with the expectation
that the sites would receive improved conservation. After the adoption of the Seville
Strategy in 1995, the concept of biosphere reserves evolved from conservation to
sustainable use. This was in line with a general tendency in the 1990s to consider
the human (and not just the exclusively natural, meaning non-human) environment;
moreover, the UN Convention for Biological Diversity, which was adopted in 1992
and came into force in 1994, placed importance on the sustainable use of biodiver-
sity. Conservation became the basis for the better use of conserved sites by the
people concerned, and biosphere reserves are now established along these lines.
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