OREANDA-NEWS. July 26, 2012. The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., announced today that Yokohama Rubber (China) Co., Ltd., the holding company for its operations in China, began in July a project to support education tied to ecological protection in Heyuan, an ethnic minority village in the Laojun Mountain Nature Reserve in Lijiang, Yunnan Province. The project is being carried out as part of efforts by Yokohama Rubber (China) Co., Ltd., termed "primeval forests and greenery environmental protection." As a model for sustainable growth and ecological preservation in the Heyuan community, the project will offer educational support to needy families and will help prevent the illegal felling of trees.

 Targets of the project are families actively cooperating in ecological protection, who, as a result, see their economic income decline for a period of time due to long cultivation cycles of economic crops. The costs of sending their children to school then become a heavy burden. Families receiving the support will be selected at an assembly of the villagers. The project is expected to stop the illegal felling of trees by villagers to supplement their incomes and promote to preserve in turn private forests in Heyuan.

 The project for sustainable growth and ecological preservation in the Heyuan community at Laojun Mountain in Lijiang was launched in 2011. These environmental protection activities are new in CSR efforts.

 Yokohama Rubber (China) Co., Ltd., was established in the city of Shanghai in November 2005 as Yokohama Rubber’s holding company to exercise overall control of its tire and multiple-business (MB) operations in China.