一般社団法人JELF(日本環境法律家連盟）は、2021年7月14日、Okinawa Environmental Justice Projectが呼びかけておられる共同書簡「やんばるの森を信の世界遺産に」に、団体賛同しました。

　沖縄本島北部やんばるの森が世界遺産候補地となった中、ユネスコ憲章に掲げられる反戦平和、人権の尊重、自由、平等、公正、法の支配による世界が実現されていくためにも、今回の世界遺産登録文書において、米軍北部訓練場や返還地の問題とその解決策に関する明確な言及が必要である、とする書簡です。

　この共同声明に関するリンクはこちらからご確認ください。→　http://okinawaejp.blogspot.com/2021/07/39ngo.html

　提出された要請文（英語原文）は以下の通りです。
　書簡の英文と和訳、要請文に添付された図表と参考資料は、このページ上、PDFファイルで掲載しています。
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July 18, 2021

H.E. Mr. Tian Xuejun
Chairperson
UNESCO World Heritage Committee
7, Place de Fontenoy
75352 Paris CEDEX 07 
France

Dear Chairperson Tian Xuegun:

We, the undersigned community groups, NGOs, and civil society organizations, would like to congratulate you and the UNESCO World Heritage Committee on the 44th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting. We hope that the 44 Session will be successful. We would also like to direct the attention of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to our concerns regarding the recommendation of the Northern Part of Okinawa Island (NPOI) in Japan for World Natural Heritage status made by the IUCN World Heritage Programme.

We welcome the IUCN Programme’s recommendation that, along with the other nominated sites (the Islands of Amami-Oshima, Tokunoshima, and Iriomote), the NPOI be inscribed as a World Natural Heritage site. We appreciate that both the Programme and the Japanese Ministry of the Environment considered our concerns regarding the issues of the U.S. military’s Northern Training Area (NTA) located next to the NOPI in the nomination process. (See Appendix NPOI for UNESCO WNH). We especially value their efforts to obtain a collaboration agreement from the U.S. military for the nomination process and the U.S. military’s willingness to collaborate. We hope that the NPOI and the other nominated sites will be inscribed as World Natural Heritage sites at the 44th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting.

However, we believe that the IUCN World Heritage Programme’s evaluation and recommendation of the NPOI presented in the IUCN World Heritage Evaluations 2020 and 2021 should include more explicit language to address the issues of the NTA and the “returned land” of the former NTA now incorporated into the nominated site. Considering the current situations of the NTA and the “returned land,” we believe that the IUCN Programme’s evaluation and recommendation of the NPOI, as they are, cannot be effective in solving these issues.

To ensure that the NPOI is worthy of UNESCO World Heritage status and that the integrity of the UNESCO World Heritage is maintained without any compromise, we urge the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to recognize the specific issues described below of the NTA and the “returned land” and include effective language to address them in the UNESCO Committee’s inscription document.

Sincerely yours,

Contact
Hideki Yoshikawa
Director of Okinawa Environmental Justice Project
Email:yhidekiy@gmail.com