Mount Fuji Designated as World Heritage Site

On April 30, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), an advisory body to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that conducts preliminary inspections to determine whether sites should be inscribed on the World Heritage List, recommended the inclusion of Mount Fuji (Yamanashi Prefecture, Shizuoka Prefecture), which has been an object of worship and art since the ancient time, on the World Heritage List. In response, on June 22, the 37^th UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, decided to inscribe Mount Fuji on the World Heritage List as a Cultural Heritage Site. Miho no Matsubara, which had been recommended for exclusion by ICOMOS on the grounds that it could not be regarded as part of Mount Fuji, was also allowed to be inscribed as a constituent asset after a series of objections from member countries. The Japanese government withdrew its recommendation to the World Heritage Committee for Kamakura, which had been recommended for inscription as the ancient capital of the samurai government, after ICOMOS recommended that the site should not be inscribed. (Japanese)