It began with a telephone call.
"The cherry trees at Mount Yoshino are losing their vitality and we want to do something about it. If things continue as they are, the trees will gradually die away. Since the founder of Daiwa House is from this Yoshino area, won't you give us your help?" It was this phone call that prompted Daiwa House’s involvement with the cherry tree and led to our efforts to preserve the cherry trees at Mount Yoshino.
The aim was to preserve the cherry trees of Mount Yoshino for the next generation. It was also a way to put the Daiwa House spirit of "creating dreams, building hearts" into practice.
To begin with, in 2008, our involvement mainly took the form of helping organize charity concerts and supporting surveys by a team of academic researchers.
Volunteer work by company staff got underway in earnest at Yoshino in 2010.
This was a time when biodiversity was a topical subject.
Since then, a regular annual effort has been made to collect cherry stones (seeds) from adult cherry trees and to use them to grow seedlings.
Five years on, in February 2015, the first saplings grown from seed by staff were planted back out on Mount Yoshino, by coincidence on the anniversary of our founder’s death.