Photo:Mike Marsland/WireImage; Karwai Tang/WireImage
Mike Marsland/WireImage; Karwai Tang/WireImage
Leonardo DiCaprioandJeff Bezosare teaming up to save the Amazon.
TheRevenantactor, 48, and the Amazon founder, 59, will help the Protecting Our Planet (POP) Challenge to invest $200 million in the Brazilian government’s efforts to preserve the wildlife and the Indigenous people of the Amazon over the next four years.
Bezos is involved through his Bezos Earth Fund, an initiative he and his fiancéeLauren Sánchezlaunched to help fight climate change.
“The Amazon is critical for the future of global biodiversity and climate, and we welcome the commitment from President Lula and the Government of Brazil to protect it,” Cristián Samper, managing director and leader of nature solutions of the Bezos Earth Fund, said in the release.
Aerial View of Amazon Rainforest, South America.Getty
Getty
“We are pleased to support the designation and management of protected areas and Indigenous territories as a key part of the strategy to reduce deforestation, along with new economic models of development based on the conservation and sustainable use of the forest,” Samper continued.
The Protecting Our Planet Challenge aims to eliminate deforestation in the Amazon, permanently safeguard around 145 million acres of undesignated public lands and strengthen both the management of existing protected regions and the rights of the Indigenous guardians of the Brazilian Amazon.
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Amazonia — which spans Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, and Suriname and French Guiana — is critical to peoples from more than 400 Indigenous groups and is home to millions of species. However, 17 percent of the Amazonian forest is gone already, with scientists fearing catastrophic consequences if the figure reaches 20-25 percent, according to the release.
Along with zero deforestation, this plan “will contribute to Brazil’s ambitious and critical goals of achieving zero deforestation in the Amazon and accelerating the country’s transition to a sustainable and green economy,” according to the release.
DiCaprio haspreviously lent his support to global environmental campaigns.
In October 2021, The Oscar winner and environmentalist, along with Forest Whitaker and Djimon Hounsou, joined Prince Harry, 38, and leading conservationists in calling for an immediate suspension on oil and gas drilling in Africa’s Okavango River Basin, according to a press release from Re:wild.
At the time, DiCaprio shared an Instagram video asking fans to add their name to the open letter calling for an end to the drilling in the area.
source: people.com
