ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Masahiro Okafuji, President & CEO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) opened ITOCHU AOYAMA ART SQUARE in CI Plaza, a commercial facility situated next to ITOCHU’s Tokyo Headquarters, in October 2012 as part of ITOCHU’s social contribution activities with the aim of developing the future generation through art, contributing to the local community, and promoting both local and international art and culture. Since then various exhibitions have been held at that space.

This new exhibition, with its main theme of coexistence with nature, features some thirty photographs of Amazonian nature at the present and the animals inhabiting the Amazon, carefully selected from the works of National Geographic photographers. National Geographic, founded in the U.S. in 1888, is a full-color visual magazine which publishes many works by top-rated photographers around the world. This magazine is supported by avid readers who are not only keen about environmental issues and nature conservation, but also curious about a wide variety of intellectual fields.

ITOCHU, which operates globally, positions environmental issues as one of its important management policies, and supports a biodiversity preservation program to reintroduce Amazonian manatees into the wild. This program is promoted by the Wildlife Research Center of Kyoto University and the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA), and as one of the SATREPS projects by JICA and JST. The Amazon accounts for almost half of all tropical rainforests on Earth and is known as a treasure trove of ecosystems. We sincerely hope that this exhibition will enable as many people as possible to understand that the serious destruction of the Amazon rainforest is said to have a huge impact on the global climate, focusing on the current situation in which diverse creatures are living in danger in the Amazon. We invite people to discover the realities of the Amazon at the present with its natural environment and animal inhabitants.

Enjoy beautiful photographs of Amazonian manatees, a vulnerable species.