Resources for International Cooperation

  • Evaluation
    • Japan has established very comprehensive and regularly updated national inventories (making up the "Green Census") of nature and biodiversity, with broad support from researchers, experts, and volunteers.
    • Of Japan's total land area, almost 25% is designated for some form of protection.
    • A national strategy on biological diversity was approved in 1995 and is now under review.
    • Administrative capacities for nature conservation have been improved at national and local levels. Progress has been made in integrating nature conservation and rural amenity considerations into agriculture and forestry policies.
    • Many animal and plant species are threatened by extinction (over 20% of mammal, amphibian, fish, reptile and vascular plant species), with little improvement in the 1990s.
    • Effective and efficient management of protected area is hampered by the multitude of separate legal bases and responsibilities. Less than 3% of the protected areas is explicitly devoted to nature conservation. Enforcement and management capacities are weak, in particular in natural parks facing increasing pressures from visitors and development.
    • The national biodiversity strategy lacks quantified targets and does not adequately address the management of biodiversity outside protected areas (e.g. marine, coastal areas).
    • Despite inspections at customs checkpoints, the illegal entry of products from threatened and endangered species continues.
    • Integrating nature and biodiversity concerns in spatial planning and urban development, as well as in mainstream farming, forestry and fishery policies, is progressing slowly.
    • Economic instruments should be used to provide incentives for compliance with nature conservation regulations and plans, or to provide funds for managing amenities and delivering services beyond legal requirements.
  • Recommendations
    It is recommended to:
    • strengthen measures to prevent the decrease, fragmentation and degradation of habitats in protected areas and extend such areas and their interconnection within a national nature network;
    • intensify efforts to integrate nature and biodiversity concerns in agriculture, forestry, fishery and spatial planning policies (e.g. by gradually phasing out environmentally harmful subsidies, making support conditional on compliance with environmental and nature conservation standards, or rewarding efforts to improve biodiversity and amenities);
    • review and revise the national biodiversity strategy;
    • further strengthen the financial means, human resources and institutional capacities for management of protected areas; explore options for establishing financial mechanisms (e.g. a compensation fund for nature, financed by charges on land conversion and habitat interference);
    • continue to promote re-naturalisation projects to rehabilitate degraded ecosystems and to return to nature unused agricultural or industrial land and reclaimed wetlands;
    • accelerate progress in preserving and creating urban or peri-urban open green space and in revitalising river banks, with appropriate public participation.