Turning Earth’s History into Parks: Revitalizing Regional Communities with Geoparks Geology is a New Tourism Resource
People have become well acquainted with the World Heritage designation by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and municipalities in all parts of Japan are now looking to World Geoparks as a means for revitalizing regional communities and attracting tourists.
OKETANI Hitoshi
The “geo” in the term represents features such as the ground, geology, the planet Earth, and Geopark literally means parks of the earth; geological parks. This is UNESCO’s new plan for protecting and utilizing the natural environment. The Global Geoparks Network (GGN; secretariat in Paris) established in 2004 has certified regions with important natural heritage from an earth science standpoint. As of this September 18, eighty-seven regions in twenty-seven countries of the world have been certified as World Geoparks.
In Japan, the mayors of Itoigawa City (Niigata Prefecture) and Toyooka City (Hyogo Prefecture) in May 2009 called for establishing the Japan Geoparks Network (JGN). In August of the same year, the Lake Toya and Mt. Usu area, Itoigawa River area and Shimabara Peninsula were certified as the first three World Geoparks in Japan. These were followed by the San-in Coastline certified in October 2010 and Muroto area of Kochi Prefecture certified in September 2011, bringing the total to five.
OKETANI Hitoshi is a writer.
