Abstract
As of today, neither national legislation nor management system for visitor accidents in natural parks have been developed in Japan. Under such circumstances, the backcountry avalanche accident risk control by the Niseko Rules has been evaluated effective to prevent avalanche accidents as a unique local collaborative risk management system. Such a risk-control system could be explained by the concept of “governance” proposed by Rhodes because the Niseko Rules have been organized by the efforts of various parties. This study investigated if the formation process and operational status of the Niseko Rules would meet the risk governance concept features and the IRGC Framework that is proposed by the International Risk Governance Center (IRGC), through a literature survey and semi-structured interviews to related actors. The results found that the Niseko Rules met the governance concept features and the IRGC Framework, which suggested the concept of risk governance and the IRGC Framework could be applied to other natural parks that are facing challenges in risk control.
