Mount Fuji finally gets UNESCO status
From The Diplomat:
Japanese officials have announced that Mt. Fuji is poised to become a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Although an important UN advisory council, the International Council on Monuments and Sites,
has already recommended that the designation be made for the well-known
volcano, the official call will be made when UNESCO’s World Heritage
Committee convenes in Cambodia this June. Mt. Fuji (Fuji-san, as it’s known in Japan) is far and away the nation’s most revered peak, as well as the highest at 3,776 meters (12,460 feet).
Despite being a natural formation, the picture-perfect mountain is set
to be listed as a cultural site, rather than natural, on the vaunted
World Heritage List. This distinction is fair. Fuji’s snow-capped
likeness was favored as a motif in traditional art, from landscape
paintings on scrolls to wood block prints. Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, a series of ukiyo-e
(woodblock prints) by Edo-period artist Katsushika Hokusai, is perhaps
the most celebrated depiction of the near perfectly conical peak. ...
Fuji is also said to be one of the nation’s most sacred spots and one of
Japan’s “Three Holy Mountains,” alongside Mt. Tate and Mt. Haku. The
reputation stems from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, a 10th
century Japanese folktale that is considered one of the nation’s oldest
existing stories. The ancient yarn tells of a goddess who left the
elixir of life (the secret of immortality) atop Fuji – hence Hokusai’s
obsession with the peak.
Some background from Atlantic Cities:
For whatever reason, UNESCO has declined for years to include Mount Fuji in its canon of World Heritage Sites.
Part of the problem allegedly was the mountain's status as an illegal
dump – in a 12-month period starting in 2006, a local volunteer group
cleaned it of 187,000 pounds of garbage. (There's also the issue of it being a popular staging area for suicides, but as far as I know UNESCO hasn't commented on that.)
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| Fuji-san from the sky |
