Last month, just before the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization announced Mount Fuji’s designation as a World Cultural Heritage Site for its religious and artistic significance, 430 learned visitors descended on its lower northern slopes.
Dressed in saris and suits and with business cards bearing addresses from Pretoria to Amsterdam, the scholars, policy-makers and non-profit workers settled into a cluster of conference centers in the small Yamanashi Prefecture city of Fujiyoshida.
The group was not, however, focused on religious or artistic aspects of Mount Fuji, but on part of the iconic peak’s cultural heritage that normally gets less attention: The fact that 8,151 hectares of the surrounding meadows and forests are managed collectively by residents of 11 local communities.
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