OREANDA-NEWS. December 28, 2015.  Toyota Mobility Foundation (TMF) announced today that it has decided and concluded a grant agreement to support the "Ueyama Mobility Project" in the Ueyama District of Mimasaka-city, Okayama Prefecture. This program, the third assistance project since the establishment of TMF, is the first project in Japan.

The Ueyama District has a history stretching back more than 1,000 years, situated in a bountiful natural environment with 8,300 rice terraces. Many of the rice terraces in the Ueyama District were left uncultivated through the 1990s. Many of these fields have been reestablished thanks to the efforts of newcomers and local residents who, with cooperation from government agencies, have sought to restore the rice terraces from a standpoint of reviving local agriculture and protecting the natural environment. The area is gradually regaining its vitality. However, the district is facing the same issues common to all mountainous areas, including an aging and decreasing population, and the decline of the agricultural and forestry industries. Mobility for the area's residents has become restricted.

Faced with such circumstances, local NPOs, in cooperation with businesses, governments, and universities, have devised a project to build a new mobility system for mountainous areas through various means for everyday life, agriculture and forestry, and tourism. TMF will provide assistance for this project for the next four years.

Through this project, TMF is working with local communities to provide richer lifestyles in which residents of mountainous areas can enjoy the freedom of mobility, and to promote regional revitalization.

TMF Chairperson Akio Toyoda (concurrently president of Toyota Motor Corporation), said "TMF is supporting the local efforts including restoration of rice terraces by helping to achieve freedom of mobility through this assistance project. We also hope that this project will become a mobility model for mountainous areas, both in Japan and overseas, that are facing the issue of aging populations."