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Report: World Heritage and Civil Participation / Citizens'Participation for Environment

On 7 and 8 September 2014, the intensive course entitled“World Heritage and Civil Participation” (code shared with “Citizens'Participation for Environment”)

was held in Kasuga Plaza, Tsukuba.

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I had beenlooking forward to attend this class from April and it was very significant 2days for me. Even before I enrolled to this master’s program of the worldheritage, I got the brochure on the symposium for Peace and Sustainability and havebeen interested in the PUSH project which was taken in the Middle East. Theentire class was full of activity and lectures which were not only about the PUSH,but also other subjects such as civil participation, pilgrimage and simulationof the Kamakura city made us think what the world heritage meant for us interms of attaching the values, management as city planning and involvement of localcommunity.

　AsUNESCO has set the new strategy for World Heritage which is called “5C’s”, thecommunity is one of the important stakeholders. Through the classes I had inthis 1^st semester, I learned that the community participation isnecessary to keep managing the sites especially in sustainable environment. Andit is also the community, which creates and transmits the value of the culture.Yet from the Mr. Turner’s lecture, I had another idea of the participation. Mr.Turner taught us there is level on the citizen participation. Till I saw therelevant graph and idea, I had only understood that citizen participation onlycounted as either as exists or not. It was pointed out that an ideal level is“Degree of the tokenism”, neither “degree of citizen power” nor “non-participation”.The UNESCO’s goal for the participation was set as the level of the tokenism. WhenI was thinking about the Japanese world heritage sites, I think there might bemany ways of participation level depends on each sites. From Mrs. Kuroda class,it was said that Shiraakwago sites encouraged local to manage the site. Themaster plan and planning of the tourism are also made by the local. In thatcase, I think level can be at the 6-8, which is more on to the degree ofcitizen power. Also the other sites such as “Machinami-hozon” area, the highlevel of the citizen involvement has been taken. Though Mr. Turner said thedegree of the tokenism is an ideal level, I consider in some cases which thelocal scale is not that big, degree of the citizen power can be working out. FortunatelyI am going to have the field work at Shirakawago in few days, I would like tosee by myself how the citizen participation is taking place at the site.

　Afterthe lecture on the civil participation, we had another subject on “Value”.First of all, I was a bit shocked and at the same time made me another thoughtwhen Mr. Turner shared his opinion on the “Outstanding (Universal) Value”. Itis because I wrote my graduate thesis on the World Heritage Convention (1972)last year and had been reading it and also the Operational Guideline (OPG) a lot,I thought this concept of the OUV is something obligatory. It is understandablethat currently the nominated sites have more difficulty to understand its valuecompared to begging of the nominations. In that point, the credibility of thenomination list has been criticized and there is some opinion which indicatesthe world heritage list should be closed because most of the outstanding siteswere already listed. In some point I can agree to this opinion. Recently I feltthat the sites value become complicated and many of the states prepared tojustified the criteria by making and linking as stories. Speaking of the TomiokaSilk Mill, in the beginning it was even hard for me to picture its value as theuniversal level. We were all taught at school that Tomioka silk mil wassignificant in the sense of Japan’s manufacture scene and in the modernization.But how it was linked to the world was not emphasized at all. I finally wasable to understand after I went to the site and read the explanation carefully.From how Mr. Turner suggested, it might acceptable to take the “Universal” fromthe OUV, because the value which is attached to the sites captured differentlyby person.

 Mr. Turner showed us current work for adaptingthe changes to OPG. Since it is extremely rare case to see those levels ofchanges, it was quite lucky to see how those documents are carrying out.

Speakingof the value, interpretation is one of the methodological forms to attribute tothe attaching the value to the sites. One example from the Jerusalem was uniquein the way how interpretation can be different by person. The existentialistand historians have different perspectives and both approaches, explanationsare correct. I think these cases can be commonly seen even in our lives.Besides, the Jerusalem itself is the place where 3 major regions consider astheir sacred home. The lenient attitude and kindly, respectful consideration toeach other is something we need to keep in our mind to manage the sites. I feltthat methodology of interpretation can teach us variety and flexible minds toaccept the other people’s idea. Individually, I found out that the concept ofma(間), whichMr. Turner pointed out from our Japanese culture also indicates this idea andit was inspiring.

　Justhow the current situation is in the Middle East, until I heard about the PUSH,I thought working together in that area might not possible. So what is come outfrom this project is one of the successful and hopeful case to show theinternational society. It can show the power of the culture and how it canfacilitate the people. Also, I consider that the educational institutions suchas universities and researchers have the roles to guide those interests andencourage the society. These kinds of project cannot be hold by the politiciansbecause it implies lots of the political and social context. The workingprocedure sounded hard to proceed; the language problem and the perspectivedifferences, but as a result, I believe it definitely worth those amounts ofwork. When we look at the East Asia, I think this regional working group can beable to attempt. For example, the islands between Japan, Korea and China can bejust symbolic “shared” islands. It is because since it contains the right ofthe sea, the submarine oil fields and exclusive economic zone it is morecomplicated, but I think thinking about “all shared” concepts can be anotherway of solution. Since I am interested in the possibility of peace buildingthrough the world heritage, listening and learning from the Mr. Turnerenlighten me, I hope I can figure out some way to make use it to my masterthesis and to my future studies.

　Aslast, the simulation of Kamakura city to be nominated on the world heritagelist was interesting. Unfortunately I had not gotten the opportunity to go toKamakura city, simulating as ICOMOS and as part of the local was goodexperience. As a Japanese, I understood how Kamakura is important in theJapanese history, but I realized it is hardly see from the properties nowadays.It is no wonder not to be able to clarify especially for the foreigners. Thistime I was on the local resident side and wanted to insist my opinion, but asbeing the city council or as the third person, I assume it is not easy to buildthe strategy. Both the municipality’s (promoting the nomination) opinion andthe local commercial association’s opinion are understandable. Listening to themajority means killing the minority’s thought and once again, I felt thatinclusion of all the stakeholders and involve the participation cannot bemissed in terms of managing the world heritage.

Inthe practical aspects, making the statement and drafting was quite useful. Wemight be reading those official documents when we have to research on the sitesand possibly in the future we will write or draft similar documents, so it willbe helpful to get familiar with.

 In the beginning of first day of the class, Ichose the quote which says; You cannotteach a man anything, you can only help him to discover it in himself, byGalileo Galilei. I chose this one because I think this exactly reflects the situationin local governance or the situation in the internationalassistance/cooperation between countries. After the class I found out this canalso apply to the educational situation. I think many of us feel we “learned”from the class but I think what is important is what we can do after thislearning, how I can apply to my research. I hope I can always motivate myselfnot only listening/learning, but also in to practice by myself.