Today in Norikura Kogen, the first Zero Carbon Experience Event was held at the Mt. Norikura Snow Resort. Last spring the Norikura Kogen MIRAIZU (community vision) was officially established and work began to create a more healthy, connected, and sustainable community here from the inside out. The first year from April 2021 to March 2022 was full of way too many meetings and details to list here but today’s event was one of the blossoms birthed from the movement that began last spring.
The official Norikura Kogen MIRAIZU is only published in Japanese for now but you can read it here if you like.
The community vision is built on 3 main pillars – environment, community, and tourism. Until recently the majority of community-related decisions were made only through the lens of tourism and in my opinion were quite short-sighted. With the Norikura Kogen MIRAIZU now established it gives all community stakeholders a place to dialog and works to solve issues together without needing to be in the same line of work. It also gives this beautiful alpine community a place to partner with like-minded businesses and organizations.
Today’s event was put on with help from official partners National Parks of Japan, Nissan, Columbia Sportswear, ZANE Arts, Hachidori Denryoku, Enepo, and Norikura Kogen Tourism Association.
Electricity for the event was provided by a Nissan Leaf via the Vehicle To Home Inverter that makes it possible to power a variety of home appliances or in today’s case a sound system and a coffee maker.
Mayumi-san ran a craft-making booth where she helped people make a coaster from birch trees harvested in Norikura Kogen.
I took two of my boys to the event this morning and they both enjoyed the craft-making booths as well as the ice cream. They were also pretty stoked on the Jeep.
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