Toward Sustainable Management of National Parks in Japan: Securing Local Community and Stakeholder Participation

Abstract

Japan's national park system constitutes a potentially viable mechanism for securing local community participation and building stakeholder consensus for sustainable park management, although the potential of this system is yet to be fully maximized. This article gives an overview of the system of protecting natural resources in Japan, focusing on the national park system. Parks are managed by zoning and regulation, which is unique in that land is not "set aside" for nature conservation, but designated as national park wherever the need to preserve "scenic beauty" has been recognized, regardless of land ownership or land use. Although resource conservation under this system has been problematic, it has advantages, especially in terms of community participation. This article demonstrates that in order to reach the system's potential, the park authority must act as coordinator of stakeholders and facilitator of bottom-up approaches to decision-making. In order to do this, steps that must be taken include the following: identifying the various stakeholders in park management and defining the "local community"; clarifying the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder; and supporting consensus-building among stakeholders regarding the objectives and long-term vision of each park. By taking these steps, it would be possible to build a park management system that overrides government boundaries and involves local communities. This will enable the park authority to address the challenges facing Japan's complex system of conserving natural resources, and move towards sustainable management of natural resources in Japan.

Community-Based Tourism: A Pathway to Sustainability for Japan's Protected Areas

“…The introduction of utilization regulation zones by the amendments to the Natural Park Law in 2002 made it possible to limit entry to an area within a natural park by requiring advance reservations, and enabled organizations entrusted by the MoE to charge fees of up to 1000 JPY (8.33 USD) to cover their administrative costs. See Bansho (2002), Hiwasaki (2005), MoE (2002b), and Sekine and Yoshida (2003) for more details on the amendments to the Natural Parks Law. 6.…”

“…Against this background, in order to optimize the participatory potential of the national park system, the role of the MoE as coordinator of stakeholders and facilitator of bottom-up approaches to decision-making needs to be strengthened (Hiwasaki 2005). Strengthening the coordinating role of the MoE to build multistakeholder consensus regarding the objectives and long-term vision of each park, by overriding divisions between government agencies and involving local communities, can improve protected area management within the current park management system.…”

Evolving approaches to volcanic tourism crisis management: An investigation of long-term recovery models at Toya-Usu Geopark

“…Blahna and Yonts-Shepard (1989) identified numerous barriers to effective public participation. Many of them appear relevant to the context of Japanese park management that is said to be "topdown" with "no formal opportunities that guarantee the incorporation of voices in decision-making" (Hiwasaki, 2005). One reason is the centralized system of planning (Barrett, 2000), epitomized by rampant public works projects typified by the high concentration of erosion-control banks and concrete barriers manifest at disaster management sites (Broadbent, 1989).…”

Sports management in coastal protected areas. A case study on collaborative network governance towards sustainable development

“…Several studies reveal the importance of the participation of different stakeholders involved in decision-making (Pulido, 2010;Saarikoski et al, 2010) and, in particular, of the directly involved local community (Georgehan and Renard, 2002;Hiwasaki, 2005;Jones and Burgess, 2005) on the effects towards more sustainable development of the territory. These factors are precisely the ones that define a network governance and a collaborative governance structure.…”