On July 27, 2024, at an assembly of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in New Delhi, India, the Sado Island gold mines were added to the World Heritage list.
Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture is a huge complex consisting of the Nishimikawa Gold Mine and the Aikawa-Tsurushi Gold and Silver Mine, with 4 centuries of history until the end of its operations in 1989. The Aikawa Mine is also known as Sado. Kinzan, and it is a major tourist attraction.
First, the government had advised the mining complex in 2022, with the aim of inscribing it on the heritage list in 2023. However, UNESCO officials found the documentation inadequate, and the government amended its proposal before resubmitting it in January 2023.
In June 2024, UNESCO’s advisory body, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, requested more information. It recommended that Japan remove sites developed after the end of the Edo era in 1868 from the proposal and create services to show the full history of the mines. , adding World War II.
South Korea had opposed the inscription of the site as a World Heritage Site due to the forced labor of wartime personnel from the Korea Peninsula. However, as Japan followed ICOMOS’ recommendations, South Korea eventually approved the registration.
The Sado Mines are Japan’s twenty-first World Heritage cultural site, inscribed 3 years after the prehistoric Jōmon sites in northern Japan in 2021. Including herbal heritage sites, there are 26 World Heritage sites in Japan.
Although removed from the proposal, the 20th-century Kitazawa flotation plant is another notable representative of mining in Sado. Built to process gold ore, it ceased operation in 1952. Now overgrown with weeds and ivy, the design exudes a dreamlike setting. reminiscent of the Studio Ghibli film, Castle in the Sky.
(Originally published in Japanese. Header photo: Dōyū no warito, a mountain divided by mining activities, is part of the Sado gold mine. © Pixta. )