SADO: Residents of Sado Island cheered a UNESCO committee’s decision Saturday on the registration of now-defunct gold mines in the central Japan island as a World Cultural Heritage site.

About 200 people gathered at the Kirarium Sado information center on the Sado Island Gold Mines in the island city of Sado, Niigata Prefecture, to watch an online livestream of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting in New Delhi. They erupted into cheers after the committee decided following roughly 20 minutes of deliberation to inscribe the site on the heritage list.

“What we will do from now is important,” Ko Nakano, 83, head of a local civic group that has been aiming to make the gold mines a World Heritage site, said. “We want to work hard with everyone so that we can protect and utilize the precious cultural heritage and make the island more prosperous.”

“It is also our big responsibility to get along with” South Korea, which had initially opposed the site’s World Heritage registration but ultimately joined the unanimous approval of the inscription, Nakano said.

Satoru Oyamada, 51, resident of Nagano Prefecture, which borders Niigata, is visiting the island from Wednesday on a family trip. Oyamada had not known about the UNESCO committee meeting and said, “It is nice that I was able to come at the timing of the registration.”

“The gold dust mining experience was fun,” Oyamada said. “There are other tourist facilities and retro streets, so I want to come again.”

“We hope to use the World Heritage registration as an opportunity to get many people to learn about the good aspects of Sado Island, such as the ocean and food, and to increase the number of repeat customers,” said Niigata prefectural government employee Tomoka Imai, 26, who has experience working on the island.

Toru Suzuki, the 62-year-old president of Golden Sado Co., which operates tourism facilities such as one where visitors can view mine tunnels from the Edo period (1603-1868), said, “I think many tourists will come from Japan and abroad, so I will make efforts to get people to understand (the gold mines’) value.”

Sado Mayor Ryugo Watanabe and Niigata Governor Hideyo Hanazumi observed the UNESCO committee meeting in person in New Delhi.

“The dreams of Sado Island residents just came true,” Watanabe said after the committee meeting. “Today is truly the start.”

Hanazumi said that the path to the Sado Island Gold Mines’ registration had its ups and downs, saying that he felt happy and relieved at the same time. “I want to pass on the World Heritage to the next generation, and have many people use it,” he added.

When asked by reporters about how the site will exhibit information on harsh working conditions suffered by Korean laborers at the mines, which was demanded by Seoul, a senior Foreign Ministry official accompanying Watanabe and Hanazumi merely said that the Japanese government will work as one to help the international community, including South Korea, understand the value of the new World Heritage site.

JIJI Press