{"id":709,"date":"2008-12-31T07:53:27","date_gmt":"2008-12-31T12:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/hoanga\/?p=709"},"modified":"2008-12-31T07:53:27","modified_gmt":"2008-12-31T12:53:27","slug":"zoorasia-and-the-yokohama-greenery-foundation-its-not-all-dogs-demons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hoanga\/2008\/12\/31\/zoorasia-and-the-yokohama-greenery-foundation-its-not-all-dogs-demons\/","title":{"rendered":"Zoorasia and the Yokohama Greenery Foundation. It’s not all Dogs & Demons"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have ever heard of Alex Kerr and have read his book Dogs & Demons<\/a>you would think much less of Japan as a country. Some of the things in that book refer to many pork-barrel politic government projects that include such monstrosities as huge concrete damns in the middle of nowhere. From personal experience, I have seen a couple of these concrete machinations when I did some hiking just outside of the Tokyo area. Very mind boggling indeed.<\/p>\n

However, not all government projects are pork-barrel political showcases (I hope). One interesting project located in Yokohama is called Zoorasia<\/a>. Zoorasia is a large zoo with a multitude of animals from around the planet. The Zoo itself is divided into 7 areas at present that match certain geographic areas of the world. In each area are a set of representative animals from that region. For example there is an Oceanian Grassland area and one of the prominent animals there are kangaroos.<\/p>\n

The zoo is run by the Yokohama Greenery Foundation which was established as far back in the mid 70s. Back then it originally called itself the (sorry if I mistranslate here…) The Yokohama City Park Foundation (Nin-idantai Yokohama-shi Kouen Kyoukai – \u4efb\u610f\u56e3\u4f53\u6a2a\u6d5c\u5e02\u516c\u5712\u5354\u4f1a) however renamed itself to the Yokohama Greenery Foundation in 1984.<\/p>\n

The zoo itself is a little inconvenient to reach by public transportation (aka it takes awhile by bus and train). But from what I have seen the park is extremely nice with a very reasonable entrance fee (600Y). One thing I do wonder is whether Zoorasia can support itself in the long run since it is a great resource for families around the area. It would be a shame if maintaining such a nice zoo is actually not sustainable with the budget that they have. But it does seem that Zoorasia’s parent organization has some backing by the Yokohama government which I hope is a good thing. (At least I can feel some of the tax I pay is going to something interesting)<\/p>\n

References (In Japanese)<\/h4>\n