PEOPLE

How were you thinking of implementing the plan?

For a while, Ms. Koko Kato and I were on the phone with each other for roughly two hours almost every day. I still remember clearly when she phoned me at about 10 p.m. on Christmas eve. Now Christmas eve is usually a special family time that you spend with the people who are dearest to you, isn’t it? Well, it certainly was for me, but here she was calling again about the World Heritage project and the usual discussion ensued. You would think I’d end the call as soon as possible, after all it was Christmas eve, but there were points we didn’t agree on and we had to work them out, so the call went on and on (laughs). I think this was another of our two-hour discussions. What a memory.

Ms. Koko Kato’s idea of having the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution inscribed on the World Heritage list is really wonderful, and her strong conviction and passion for the project would make anyone want to support her. That’s why I was willing to work hard to solve the problems that were getting in the way. Ms. Kato wanted to see Miike Port on the World Heritage list and so did everyone in the local community. It had to be done in such a way, however, that there would be no hinderance to the continuing operations of the port. Under the Port and Harbor Act, Miike Port is already designated as a special major port and therefore is required to “formulate a plan for the development, utilization and preservation of the port.” This port includes World Heritage installations, and so long as the Port and Harbor Act is properly and rigorously applied, it is possible to conserve and manage those installations without drafting new laws or changing laws that already exist. This was an area in which I felt I had the practical experience needed to draft a good proposal.

How did the Agency for Cultural Affairs react to your proposal to apply the provisions of the Port and Harbor Act?

My job as an administrator only went so far as to draft the proposal. Ms. Koko Kato handled the negotiations with the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Apparently, the Agency had no complaints about the proposal, but from start to finish they insisted that cultural properties can only be conserved under the terms of the Act on Protection of Cultural Properties. We never did get an OK from them, but that was expected. It was my opinion that the national government had to create a completely new system for World Heritage sites.

In the end, the Cabinet Secretariat, instead of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, took over responsibility for promoting the World Heritage inscription of the Sites of Meiji Restoration, and it was decided to conserve and manage Miike Port under the provisions of the Port and Harbor Act.

Even so, many of the people involved in managing Japan’s cultural properties probably thought that MLIT and those responsible for the country’s ports and harbors would not be able to properly manage heritage properties. After all, these were people responsible for development not conservation. Well, that was all the more reason we all felt strongly that we had to do this perfectly. I think Ms. Koko Kato played a significant part in convincing the Ministry of this.

Once a property is inscribed on the World Heritage list, UNESCO requires that the conservation and management plan, submitted with a letter of recommendation, be implemented. UNESCO also requires the drafting and implementation of an interpretation plan. You drafted the conservation and management plan for Miike Port.

I worked on the initial rough draft of the conservation and management plan with Masafumi Mori who was a planning officer in the Kyushu Region Development Bureau at the time and Oba who was only in his second year at the Ministry. There was no precedent for drafting a conservation and management plan under the provisions of the Port and Harbor Act when a whole port was to be a World Heritage site. We went through a lot of trial-and-error in drafting the plan. The job was made even harder because we had to draft the document in both Japanese and English so that we could get the advice of overseas experts. Ms. Koko Kato rewrote the draft putting the finishing touches and made it quite a powerful document. Looking at the final version, I see a few places still remaining that I originally wrote, so it feels good to know I made a contribution.