The Environment Ministry unveiled a new bill Wednesday to tighten rules on the use of national parks, quasi-national parks and other natural preserves to help protect wildlife and habitat.

The bill, an amendment to the nature parks law, would allow the government to designate "restricted" areas in nature parks and put an upper limit on the number of visitors.

While the limitation would also apply to public parks that are regulated through government ordinances, the immediate target is Shiretoko National Park in northeastern Hokkaido, a park known as Japan's last unexplored natural preserve.

The bill is expected to go to the Diet next month. The Environment Ministry hopes to get the bill into the books and enforce it on April 1 next year.

The proposed legislation also contains provisions to protect wildlife on private land located inside nature parks by authorizing private nonprofit groups or local authorities to set up nature protection zones with the landowners.

Private nonprofit groups and local authorities would also be allowed to manage nature parks on behalf of the state.

The current nature parks legislation allows the government to ban motor vehicles and motorcycles from entering designated park areas.

However, pedestrians and canoeists, for example, fall outside the regulation, something the Environment Ministry wants to remedy under the proposed law.

Under the bill, the environment minister or prefectural governor can limit the number of people allowed entry into the park areas on a day or limit the number of days one person can stay inside a park.

At Shiretoko National Park, local authorities have sought to limit the number of visitors to the park in order to protect the wildlife, but the number of visitors has kept rising because the restrictions are not backed by law.