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Ricoh Corporation in America is supporting the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an international non-governmental organization (NGO), which is working on conservation activities in the Sierra Tarahumara mountains covering 60,000 square kilometers (area a little smaller than that of Hokkaido) in the Sierra Madre Occidental in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico.  |
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| The Sierra Tarahumarais a forest of pine and oak treessupports a variety of species unique to this area. Water is the source of life; these rivers supply water for 1.5 million people in Northern Mexico and irrigate over 600,000 hectacres of Mexican agricultural land. They even impact the supply of water to the southwestern United States. |
 Now, a small portion of the Sierra Tarahumara forest is left after massive deforesting operations, and this fact results in the drying up of river beds.Moreover, because many wells have been dug one after another to cover the water shortage, the volume of ground water is decreasing and local people are facing a crisis of an unstable water supply. If this problem continues to be left unsolved, millions of Mexican people may not have a source of water. Therefore, to conserve this important place, Ricoh Corporation and WWF are working to make this forest certified. |
 In order to start conserving forests and protecting water sources, Ricoh Corporation is working with the communities on plans for a planting operations covering 6,000 hectares of the area. Environmental education of local people who have been informed of the effects of deforestation on the Sierra Tarahumara forest and they will now realize the benefits to themselves and the need to protect this environment in which they live.These activities attract a lot of attention not only in Mexico, but also in America, and governmental agencies such as theAmerican Agency for International Development are supporting them. |
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