Recommendations and Requests Submitted to Japan from the 37th session of the World Heritage Committee

Recommendations

Recommends that the State Party operationalize the management system in order to manage the property as an entity and as a cultural landscape with respect to the following.

• a）Put in place an overall vision for the property related to its conflicting needs to offer access and recreation and to maintain spiritual and aesthetic qualities.
• b）Delineate the pilgrim routes on the lower slopes of the mountain in relation to the shrines and lodging sites and to their links to the upper ascent routes, and consider how these might be perceived and understood.
• c）Develop a visitor management strategy based on researched carrying capacities for the upper access routes.
• d）Develop an overall conservation approach for the upper access routes and their associated huts and tractor routes.
• e）Develop an interpretation strategy that informs how each of the individual sites can be appreciated and understood as part of the overall property and of the overall pilgrimage routes around both the upper and lower slopes of the mountain, in order to guide the development of visitor centres and interpretation at individual sites.
• f）Strengthen the monitoring indicators to reflect spiritual and aesthetic aspects of the landscape.

Requests

Requests the State Party to submit a state of conservation report to the World Heritage Centre by 1 February 2016 in order to provide an update on the progress with the development of an overall vision for the property, a tourism strategy, a conservation approach for the access routes, an Interpretation strategy, a risk management strategy with the overall revision of the management plan to reflect a cultural landscape approach to be examined by the World Heritage Committee at its 40th session in 2016 and encourages the State Party to ask ICOMOS advice on these approaches.