PEOPLE

The Hagi World Heritage Symposium and the “Hagi Declaration”

On January 23, 2007, the Agency for Cultural Affairs announced that it would recommend four of the 24 entries from throughout Japan for inscription in the World Heritage List. Unfortunately, this did not include the “Modern Industrial Heritage Sites in Kyushu and Yamaguchi” which was considered to require further deliberation.

It was around that time I met Ms. Koko Kato at a symposium in Hagi that I attended at the behest of Mr. Takeo Kawamura, a member of the House of Representatives from Yamaguchi Prefecture. This was the World Heritage Hagi Symposium held on February 3, 2007, at which the “Hagi Declaration” supporting the proposed serial inscription of the industrial heritage sites was made. I was one of the people who got up on the stage to express my support for the declaration.

Ms. Koko Kato and Mr. Kimiyasu Shimadzu[A1] , currently a board member of the National Congress of International Heritage, had invited to the symposium Sir Neil Cossons, chair of the English Heritage organization, and Dr. Stuart Smith, both leading authorities on industrial heritage and industrial archaeology. Sir Neil Cossons spoke at the event in support of the “Modern Industrial Heritage Sites in Kyushu and Yamaguchi,” noting that the Hagi reverberatory furnace showed the Japanese efforts that had been made to master modern metallurgy.

Bringing in experts from overseas

Following this symposium, my mandate to oversee World Heritage sites brought me into contact with Ms. Koko Kato on a number of occasions to discuss the proposed World Heritage serial inscription of industrial sites. In 2007, at the 31st session of the World Heritage Committee in Christchurch, New Zealand from June 23 to July 2, the “Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine and its Cultural Landscape” was inscribed into UNESCO’s World Heritage List. I was transferred to a different department soon after that and no longer was involved in an official capacity, but my discussions with Ms. Koko Kato continued, nevertheless.

Ms. Kato told me that the proposed sites presented a story of Japan’s modernization in the Meiji era and development into a major economic power. The Meiji story would not be complete, she insisted, without the inclusion of the early industrial sites in the former feudal domains of Satsuma (Kagoshima) and Choshu (Yamaguchi). I remember warning her, however, that there were many facets to Japan’s modernization, not just its industrial heritage, and there were likely to be protests that having the industrial sites alone declared World Heritage sites would not be sufficient to tell the full story of Japan’s modernization. A clearly articulated concept was needed to identify the true value of this heritage; “modernization” alone was not enough.

The development of industrial technology has taken place through the ages on a global scale. For an industrial site to be registered as a World Heritage site, it must have significance in an international context. There are iron and steel, shipbuilding and mining sites of historical importance throughout the world. The world heritage value of the sites in question and the manner in which Japan will preserve them must be based on the advice and guidance of the International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage (TICCIH) or the application for World Heritage inscription will never pass the screening of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).

I knew how important this was since I had gone through the painful process of meeting the stringent requirements of ICOMOS to get the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine on the World Heritage List. I also heard that similar opinions were expressed at the World Mining Congress attended by many of the TICCIH experts. The evaluation, opinions and advice of international experts need to be solicited from the very beginning if the objective is to get Japan’s industrial sites inscribed into UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Getting listed requires the understanding and support of global authorities on World Heritage sites. These are people who deliberate the criteria for a World Heritage site and for how it should be managed and preserved. No site can achieve World Heritage status without their understanding and support.

Ms. Koko Kato was personally acquainted with a number of international authorities on industrial heritage, including Sir Neil Cossons and Dr. Stuart Smith, and she told me she would be seeking their advice from the very first stages of the project. At the same time, experts within Japan would also need to be consulted and their recommendations secured. To this end, the Consortium for the World Heritage Inscription of Modern Industrial Heritage (Kyushu-Yamaguchi) was formed to include Sir Neil Cossons, Mr. Barry Gamble and other such international experts as well as Mr. Yukio Nishimura, president of the Japan ICOMOS National Committee, and other Japanese experts.

Before the project to have the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine inscribed as UNESCO’s World Heritage site, interaction with international experts tended to be confined to inviting their participation in international symposiums. Later, however, it became more common to include international authorities on expert panels. In no other case, however, was such thorough advice from a global perspective sought as it was for the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution. For this project, the panel of 16 experts comprised seven Japanese and nine international experts and was chaired by Sir Neil Cossons.