Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs held a Cultural Council meeting on the 28th, introducing a plan to roughly control the number of hikers on Mount Fuji — a World Heritage Site — from around 2017 to 2018 in order to protect the environment, as well as a plan to conduct research and studies on the history of Mount Fuji as an object of mountain worship.
According to Kyodo News, the above plans will be included in the Mount Fuji conservation status report currently being prepared by Yamanashi and Shizuoka prefectures, which is scheduled to be submitted to UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) by the end of February 2016.
Due to concerns that increased tourism may lead to environmental degradation on Mount Fuji, UNESCO has urged Japan to take measures. The report will propose that starting in 2015, it will take about three years to study and set carrying capacities mainly for hiking trails above the Fifth Station (i.e., the mountain’s midpoint), and to implement related measures.
The research and study on mountain worship aims to widely promote the aspect of Mount Fuji as a cultural heritage site. This plan will primarily be advanced by the “Mount Fuji World Heritage Centre,” which the two prefectures plan to establish in the 2016 fiscal year. In addition, the report also intends to incorporate lessons learned from the Ontake volcanic eruption disaster, which caused multiple casualties, by including measures to strengthen evacuation guidance for hikers and others.