Utilizing NFTs to create a connected population: Kishiwada City's challenge to create a new form of regional development in the Web3.0 era

Please tell us the background of Kishiwada City's initiative for "Bamboo Forest Ownership NFT".

Kawabata Hideyuki (hereinafter Kawabata): Kishiwada City has signed an SDGs partnership agreement with Adventure World, a theme park in Nanki Shirahama, Wakayama, and is promoting the "Panda Bamboo Project" to make effective use of the bamboo trunks that giant pandas do not eat.

Until now, pandas have only eaten the bamboo branches and leaves, and the remaining bamboo trunks have been incinerated, but this wastes resources. For this reason, we wanted to aim to realize a circular society by promoting sustainable resource utilization. However, although we provide bamboo as food for pandas through the project, there are still many abandoned bamboo forests in Kishiwada City.

Therefore, we wanted to create a system to get more people interested in bamboo forest maintenance and actually get involved, which was the trigger for starting "Bamboo Forest Ownership NFT".

While the Panda Bamboo Project has previously aimed to gain fans, the project has now turned its attention to NFTs as a way to reach a new demographic, with the aim of raising awareness of the current state of Kishiwada City's bamboo forests.