Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > JAPANESE GOVERNMENT POLICIES IN EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND CULTURE 1993 > CHAPTER 3 �2 1

As was previously mentioned, to cope with the sudden rapid changes in the environments that surround cultural properties, the original 1950 "Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties" (as well as the system for the protection and utilization of cultural' properties) was totally revised in both 1954 and in 1975. Since these revisions, policies to protect cultural property have developed under this new system.

Information regarding the present revised Law has been disseminated to the general public and has been met with a satisfactory degree of understanding. The following are some of the changes which have taken place in the environments surrounding cultural properties.

1) Damage to buried cultural properties or historic buildings, and theextinction of traditional folk performing arts, caused by changes in environment resulting from large-scale land development, changes in lifestyle and depopulation and aging in agricultural and fishing villages.

2) Increased public interest in cultural activities is bringing about a growing amount of attention to historic buildings, historic sites, places of scenic beauty, traditional performing arts and so on within the community. A rising demand exists for community development through the utilization of these cultural properties.

3) Against the backdrop of Japan's increasingly important role in international society, there has been an increase in needs and expectations for projects which introduce Japanese culture, and for cooperation in the preservation and repair of artworks of Japanese origin located overseas and cultural properties that have universal value.

Faced with these changes, the Agency for Cultural Affairs has decided to conduct middle and long term systematic technical investigations on the future directions for the protection of cultural properties in order to tackle the emerging tasks. To this end, a Special Committee for Cultural Properties Protection Planning was set up in April 1992 under the Council for the Protection of Cultural Properties. The committee discussed the nature of future directions that should be taken in this area to cope with changes brought about by the passage of time and the new demands of a changing society. It submitted an interim report to the Council for the Protection of Cultural Properties in April 1993, which summarized the progress of its discussions.