On the eve of the official opening of the world’s first Zootopia-themed land on December 20, Shanghai Disney Resort held a special event to announce its committment to wildlife conservation in China.
The Details
On December 4, Shanghai Disney Resort hosted a special screening of the Walt Disney Animation Studios film “Zootopia” at the resort’s iconic Walt Disney Grand Theatre to announce a huge donation to wildlife conservation in country.
Before the screening, Shanghai Disney Resort announced a donation of RMB 1 million (approx. $140,123 USD) to the China Environmental Protection Foundation, helping to launch the two-year “My Hometown Animals and Me,” a national conservation education campaign.
The first phase of the program will encourage students in grades three to nine across the country to tell stories from their unique perspectives on how they observe, learn and protect wildlife in their lives.
The campaign will help promote greater efforts to protect wildlife and their habitats. This program will also fund a series of “My Hometown Animals and Me” themed handbooks, written by various experts in the fields of biodiversity and nature education.
These handbooks will be distributed to schools beginning with Shanghai, Yunnan province, and Sichuan province, and used for offline interactive courses to promote care for nature and foster the environmental awareness of biodiversity conservation among primary and secondary school students.
Zootopia Official Ambassador
To further build awareness and inspiration, the resort introduced leading actress Zhao Liying as the first Zootopia Tourism Authority Official Ambassador.
Zhao Liying shared a greeting message via video to the audience at the event, expressing her excitement for the opening of Zootopia, her personal passion for wildlife conservation, and she encouraged the audience to participate in the “My Hometown Animals and Me” conservation education campaign.
Zootopia Land
As Zootopia in Shanghai Disneyland prepares to officially welcome guests on December 20, 2023, the importance of wildlife conservation is spotlighted in the representation of a mammalian metropolis where animals, both predators and prey, live together in harmony.
Each element of the new land, including food and beverage, entertainment, merchandise and more, has been designed to make guests feel as if they are in a real-life Zootopia.
“At Shanghai Disney Resort, we proudly embrace our role in protecting the magic of our natural world by supporting conservation of wildlife and their habitats for future generations,” said Andrew Bolstein, Senior Vice President of Shanghai Disney Resort.
Through the messages of living in harmony with nature shared in the city of Zootopia, Shanghai Disney Resort hopes guests will gain a greater passion to promote wildlife conservation in their own communities and hometowns, so that animals large and small continue to thrive throughout the real world.