LIJANG, China (July 10, 2013) — Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. is supporting environmental protection activities in China by fostering beekeeping efforts in Yunnan Province.
Yokohama Rubber (China) Co. Ltd. launched the effort, described as "agriculture development and evolution." in Heyuan, an ethnic minority village in the Laojun Mountain Nature Reserve in Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China.
The activities are being implemented as part of a project for sustainable growth and ecological preservation in the Heyuan community conducted by a Chinese environmental NGO, the Beijing SanSheng Environment and Development Research Institute, according to Tokyo-based Yokohama Rubber.
A ceremony in June to launch the effort was attended by Chairman and President Koichi Tanaka of Yokohama Rubber (China) and employees, who donated beekeeping equipment to Heyuan villagers.
In the Lijiang region, economic development is being activated by tourism, Yokohama said, even as deforestation, poaching and other conditions are "threatening the natural ecosystem."
The project for sustainable growth and ecological preservation in the Heyuan community was begun in 2011 "with the aim of helping establish an economic system in which the villagers could earn a living while preserving the natural ecosystem," the tire maker said. To support the effort, in July 2012 Yokohama Rubber (China) began a project to support education tied to ecological protection in Heyuan.
It now also has begun supporting beekeeping and planting tenma, which grows naturally in the area.
Yokohama Rubber (China) was established in November 2005 in the city of Shanghai as a holding company to exercise overall control of its parent firm's tire and multiple-business operations in China. The company said its sales and production subsidiaries in China also have carried out tree plantings under the Yokohama Forever Forest Project.