PEOPLE

Project teams of industry experts

Evaluating an industrial site for World Heritage inscription requires technical assessments of such factors as technology development, industry building, and the means by which technology was acquired. Meaningful evaluation is nearly impossible without clear explanations of these aspects. In the case of the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine, we had a lot of trouble explaining these technical aspects to the international experts. Some eight years ago, Ms. Koko Kato and I agreed that we needed to create a solid system to explain the industrial technology aspects to experts from overseas. My involvement with this project resumed when I assumed my current post about two and a half years ago. At that point, there still wasn’t a strong industry project team. Not only that, to my chagrin, I learned that there was no one in the Consortium for the World Heritage Inscription of Modern Industrial Heritage (Kyushu-Yamaguchi) with the required technical expertise. After consulting with Ms. Koko Kato, we addressed this problem by creating three industry project teams for iron and steel, shipbuilding, and ports within the panel of experts convened by the Cabinet Secretariat to deliberate on Japan’s recommendations for World Heritage inscription. We also got input from experts on each of these fields when we drafted the recommendations.

Working properties as World Heritage

Back then, the Agency for Cultural Affairs required that all World Heritage components had to be registered as cultural properties under the Act on Protection of Cultural Properties. This meant that local municipalities were responsible for the management and conservation of those cultural properties that they owned, and if the cultural property in question was privately owned, the municipality’s board of education was administratively responsible for the property’s management and conservation. The administration of Japan’s cultural properties is organized in a system incorporating the national government, prefectural governments, and local municipalities. In this system, the prefectural governments are responsible for drafting World Heritage nomination dossiers—and once a property is inscribed into UNESCO’s World Heritage List—for oversight of the management and conservation of the property. The relevant promotion and conservation councils are the responsibility of the local municipalities. The public call for World Heritage site recommendations that was started under my purview was premised on the assumption that the recommendations would be made by the prefectural governments.

In the case of working properties, however, the industrial facilities are owned by private companies. Ms. Koko Kato wanted to have the companies or private organizations draft the Conservation Management Plans (CMPs) for these properties. But at that time, the Agency for Cultural Affairs was not yet familiar with the idea that industrial heritage could include working properties, and when it found such properties on the tentative list, it directed the relevant prefectures and municipalities to form organizations to draft the necessary nomination dossiers and CMPs.

When the project was brought under the Cabinet Secretariat, we created a framework in which the owners of working properties participate in the conservation efforts led by the Cabinet Secretariat with the cooperation of the relevant ministries and agencies, and we asked Ms. Koko Kato to coordinate these efforts to ensure that everyone played a part in drafting the CMP.

Interpretation

Working properties have historical value particularly because they have been in continuous, unchanged, operation from the time they were first built and installed to the present day. Not only can working properties be viewed directly, they can also be explained with 3D computer graphics and 4K imaging technology.

In the case of the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution, their universal value as World Heritage is to be found in the historical events related to the rapid industrialization that took place from the 1850s to 1910. Of course, the history of working properties, such as the Hashima and Miike coal mines, has continued beyond 1910, but this period of time is not a criterion for evaluating their universal value as World Heritage. Still, their continued operation nevertheless has historical significance and we have chosen not to ignore this aspect, but to include it in our CMPs and interpretations.

Before I joined the Cabinet Secretariat, I worked in MEXT’s Research Promotion Bureau Information Division where I oversaw the administration of some of Japan’s most advanced science and technology. There was much discussion then of the importance and social significance of developing so-called National Key Technologies. This experience has helped me to understand better the story told by the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution of our forebears’ considerable efforts and great achievements.

The Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution shine a light on the broad vision and strong sense of mission that led our forebears, through much trial and error, to undertake continuing challenges, foster viable technologies, and develop human resources. I believe we can find hints in this story of how we should apply technology to developing our contemporary industries.