 "Your position requires you to do things correctly. This is different frrm doing things well. So, I told myself to calm down, think things over clearly and do the right thing. Money to me, is like keeping something for God. If God thinks I kept it well, he might let me to keep it longer; if not, perhaps he will take it back." Luo Hong commenting on Holiland, China's largest bakery chain based in Shenyang in northeastern China's Liaoning Province. (Photo credit: China.org.cn.) |
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Luo Hong is an activist environmental photographer whose work has been exhibited in China, UN offices in Nairobi and UN Headquarters in New York.
Having traveled more than 10 times to Africa, Luo Hong is devoted to natural landscape and wild animal photography and has used his camera lens to highlight the beauty of wildlife and its fragility against the backdrop of climate change.
He is also the president of China's largest bakery chain, Holiland. He built up the cake store 15 years ago. It now has grown to a chain attaching more than 600 stores in China. In one and a half decade, Luo Hong changed himself from an apprentice in a photo studio to a billionaire CEO.
In 2000, Luo Hong founded a moon-cake factory in Shenyang in northeastern China's Liaoning Province. But only one year later, he decided to take down the factory and build a new one. He thought the factory didn't match international sanitary standards, so he added 50 million yuan, or about 6.7 million US dollars, to rebuild it to meet the international standards of the pharmaceutical industry.
His love for wild animals has made Luo Hong a vocal environment protector. He has also set up a personal environmental-protection fund in the UN Environmental Program, which is the first in UN history. The first fund of 2 million yuan or about US$270,000, has been used to protect the environment in the Lake Nakuru National Park of Kenya.
In 2006 he established the Luo Hong Environment Foundation whose aim is to train and reward youth worldwide working in environmental protection. Two years ago he travelled to the Arctic and Antarctic to photograph wild animals whose habitat is slowly disappearing with the melting tundra.
In 2008, his Foundation sponsored UNEP's Painting Competition by Children in China, a hugely successful event with about 1.5 million participants.
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