TOKYO, Japan: A latest surge of vacationers visiting Mt Fuji, situated between Yamanashi and Shizuoka prefectures in japanese Japan, has led to excessive air pollution ranges and different strains, native authorities stated.
The 12,388-feet mountain is worshipped as sacred by the Japanese and is a supply of pleasure attributable to its completely symmetrical kind.
Authorities additionally stated they might be compelled to take drastic measures, equivalent to limiting the variety of guests by making the mountain solely accessible by a proposed tram system.
During a tour for international media on Saturday, the final weekend earlier than Fuji’s trails shut for the 12 months, Yamanashi prefecture official Masatake Izumi instructed reporters, “Fuji faces a real crisis. It is uncontrollable, and we fear that Mt Fuji will soon become so unattractive nobody would want to climb it.”
Mt Fuji was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage website 10 years in the past, however this got here with situations that Japan ought to scale back overcrowding, environmental hurt from guests and take away the synthetic panorama, equivalent to the massive parking areas for vacationers.
However, overcrowding has continued to be a problem. “Subaru,” the fifth and largest base station, had about 4 million guests this summer season, a 50 % rise from 2013.
Izumi careworn that the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), which advises the World Heritage Committee, might seem any day to ask for an replace.
“Bullet climbing,” the place climbers try to scale Japan’s tallest peak for dawn and descend on the identical day, can also be a rising downside, authorities stated.