Japan’s National Parks: Trends in Administration and Nature-Based Tourism

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Japan’s national parks, created via a 1931 act and amalgamated in 1957 into the top rung of a three-tiered nature park system. The Ministry of Environment (MOE) uses a spectrum of core and buffer zones to administer the 34 national parks’ multi-purpose objectives including conservation and nature-based tourism (NBT). However, the MOE faces familiar challenges linked to lack of land ownership, fiscal and human resources. Within park planning, one of the MOE’s main roles is to monitor trends in NBT. Aggregate national park visits declined from a 1991 peak of 415 million to 309 million in 2011, before rebounding to 359 million in 2016. The number of inbound visits has been estimated since 2012, increasing to 6.7 million visits in 2019. Almost half of aggregate inbound park visits were recorded at Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, centred on Mt Fuji—Japan’s tallest peak at 3,776 m. Our case study provides insights into Fuji’s climbing dynamics, offering contextual evidence of the shift from pilgrimage to peak-hunting, along with an increasingly diverse visitor profile including more female and foreign climbers. Unlocking the potential of Japan’s multi-purpose parks requires cross-cutting partnerships that emphasize co-management to resolve the trade-off between conservation and development.