The final objective of this study is to examine the relationship between the local heritage system and other policies in community development through tourism. As the first part of study, this paper focuses on Amami heritage and its prerequisites, backgrounds and activities that have been developed and deepened in Amami City, and tries to reveal (1) the characteristics of Amami heritage as a local heritage system, (2) efforts made prior to structuring the Amami heritage system to value and utilize local resources, and the link to the Amami heritage system, (3) the steps taken to deepen the Amami heritage after the system was structured. Through them, this paper aims to summarize the perspectives of the following paper that will examines how the Amami heritage was utilized and developed in community development through tourism, how it corresponded with other policies such as the activity for registration as a World Natural Heritage site, and its significance.

　The field of this study is Amami Gunto Archipelago, especially focuses on Amami city. We conducted document research such as local government’s policy report, pamphlet, local newspaper, and so on, and interview survey on the local government office. The results are as follows.

(1) The Amami heritage was structured as part of the Basic Scheme for Historic and Cultural Properties (BSHCP) and was divided into two stages: "municipal heritage" and "Amami heritage". In the former case, both "subjective value" and "objective value" were used as criteria. The characteristics of Amami heritages as regional heritage are that they are to be collected in a wide and diverse range of frontage and to select as Amami heritages those that represent the archipelago and have academic value. This could made it possible to focus on declining local resources without being bound by preconceived notions and makes it easier to recognize them as targets for conservation and utilization. On the other hand, it can be also considered that the project has been able to appeal to people outside of the region and prioritize the order of conservation.

(2) Since 1980s, the concept of an eco-museum was introduced into the region, and policies and plans such as the Amami Gunto Natural Symbiosis Plan and the Amami Eco-museum Project had been implemented. In the process, researching the local resources was called "island treasure hunting" and the natural resources were evaluated from the both sides of "academic value" and "social value", which is common to the Amami heritage. However, it seems not to be possible to complete selecting regional resources as the "100 Amami treasures", suggesting that this may have been a task of the era of Amami heritage.

(3) Following the policy of conservation and utilization of Amami heritage showed in the BSHCP, the Amami heritage system has been deepened through studies, lectures and producing media. Efforts have also been made to expand the system to the whole Amami archipelago and to disseminate and promote Amami heritage in other fields of regional activities. In particular, the research and valorization of local resources that were not completed in the model project have been carried out as part of social education, school education, and tourism policy by local residents, and experts have supported these efforts to date. Through these efforts, some cases of urban development for tourism have begun to emerge.