Current Status and Issues Surrounding Ecotourism in the Shiretoko Region (World Natural Heritage Site)

摘要

Hokkaido-Shiretoko was placed on the World Natural Heritage List in July, 2005. Because of the high expectation that many people would visit from all over the world, new business opportu-nities were anticipated from the promotion of regional development and tourism. The benefit of nature in Siretoko would be sought in a different way through ecotourism. The concept of ecotourism usually implies "sustainable development" however ; the concept of sustainability is quite diverse while the concept of ecotourism is rather vague. The meaning of "ecotourism" used by travel agency and the mass media has been positioned as a kind of mass-tourism and developed similar to mass-tourism. A similar vague concept was adopted in Shiretoko region, therefore, ecotourism has been devel-oped as part of mass-tourism in the area. After registration as a World Natural Heritage site, the number of tourists and suddenly increased in Shiretoko area where visiting tourists were out-numbered the capacity of accommodation and the environmental load increased remarkably. There-fore, to plan a break from mass-tourism and to establish a tourism industry with no environmental load is now an important issue. The establishment of "real" ecotourism in Siretoko has been carried out mainly by Shiretoko Eco-tourism Association in line with the "Shiretoko Eco-tourism Action Plan" published by 2007. However, the factor of "Regional cooperation" and "Autonomy of the region" becomes important for carrying out the plan of ecotourism. How to abolish the harmful effects which lies between the local people and the implementing agency becomes an important issue. This report considers the possibility of establishing ecotourism through autonomy in the region while paying attention to harmful effects.