A Helping Hand From Toyota to the Yosemite National Park Fund
by Eric Leech, New York, NY 
on 09.30.08
Photo by Roger J. Wyan
Left to right: Bill Duff, Corporate Manager, Environmental Office, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.; Bob Hansen, President, The Yosemite Fund; Steve Kang, Chancellor, UC Merced; and Mike Tollefson, Superintendent of Yosemite National Park
It's nice to hear of successful companies offering their support towards helping to sustain our earth and our dwindling national parks. Toyota presented a check and five Toyota Prius vehicles to The Yosemite fund today in order to help support their Yosemite Leadership Program (YLP), which will provide today's youth with the hands on experience necessary to learn about preserving and sustaining wildlife by executing good wilderness ethics in our precious parks.
The check offered by Toyota totaled over $600,000, will also be used to help establish a two week Executive Leadership Seminar, which will help to further educate current experienced professionals from the government, corporate sector, and non-profit organizations. The seminars will cover how to face real world land management challenges by giving them the knowledge of the University of California's academic team (UC Merced) as well as the field study experience from the Yosemite National Park team.
The Toyota Prius vehicles will be put to good use in the park, creating awareness of sustainability and better air management by traveling through the park to the different bear habitats, scavenging the trails during search and rescue operations, and conducting wilderness education field work for visitors and students alike.
This contribution is all part of Toyota's $5 million dollar donation (plus 23 Prius vehicles) plan to give aid to five National Parks around the U.S., giving them a leg up on their education programs and enhance their current environmental leadership capabilities. A park is only as good as its people running it, so this will help these programs from the inside out, where they really need it.
More on U.S. National Parks
Go National Park Hopping—Astonishing Nature Right at your Doorstep
Go National Park Hopping, Part 2
Environmental Education Programs at Grand Canyon National Park Enhanced
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Toyota is pretty much the largest automobile company on the planet and thus is contributing as much or more than any other company to the destruction of the planet.
The automobile is not sustainable regardless of the fuel. Ironically, the resources required for hybrids is even greater than other vehicles due to their batteries and their electrical drive train. The extraction of these resources leads to the destruction of wilderness all around the world.
The best thing that Toyota could do for the planet is get out of the automobile industry and get into rail or public transit.
As much as i usually do not agree with the more "extreme" views expressed in comments on TreeHugger, I must admit that Richard is "dead on". Toyota's entire business model (which is QUITE successful) depends on getting more cars on the road. The fact that they do a relatively good job on mileage and emissions PER CAR, and that they donate to environmental causes, doesn't change the basic facts. Fewer cars will yield less driving, which will yield a better environment. What WOULD impress me would be an announcement from Toyota that they had developed some radical new mass-transit system, that would change the world and make a lot of money for Toyota.
Toyota is aiming to be the greenest car maker, I don't see a problem with it. Hybrid cars are a fantastic cross-over technology that hopefully will get us away from using fossil fuels.
Today: Gas and Hybrids
Tomorrow: Hybrids and Electric
Future: Electric and Beyond
See the trend...? This is good news for all.