b) Evaluation of the property's present state of preservation as compared with similar properties elsewhere

Throughout Asia there are countless farm villages with wooden houses, and in most of these villages traditional customs and lifestyles are still a dominant part of everyday life. However, in most of Asia, in cases where buildings are preserved, they are preserved in outdoor museums or in parts of "tourist villages", but without proper laws for formal protection as cultural properties. At present, Japan is the only country which has established programs to protect the living village culture and environment through a system of laws set up by national and local government. These laws provide for proper preservation measures to be undertaken specifically in the context of the living village. Under the system related to Preservation Districts for Groups of Historic Buildings (newly established in 1975 as part of the revisions to the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties), by August 1994 forty Preservation Districts had been designated throughout Japan. Among these, in the category of agricultural properties there are three other Preservation Districts besides the nominated properties. Although the state of preservation in these other three districts is also quite good, in relative terms the Shirakawa-go / Gokayama properties are valued more highly because of the rarity of the building type which they represent. In the Shirakawa-go / Gokayama area, the future of the preservation effort is secure, not only for the preservation of the physical environment -- the Gassho-style houses, accessory buildings, the cultivated lands and other features of the natural and man-made surroundings -- but also the cultural environment: the traditional social systems and customs, including the mutual help system for the maintenance of the Gassho-style houses, plus the traditions of folk music, dance and other types of folk entertainment which have been handed down as part of the village cultural legacy. The preservation of all of these has been officially mandated by legal measures, but it is the residents themselves who have organized the Preservation Association and who have for over two decades made active efforts to carry out the necessary preservation work motivated by their own will. These points help underscore the value of these properties as appropriate for inclusion on the World Heritage List.