Leonardo DiCaprio Offers $20 Million Environment Grants
Leonardo DiCaprio announced that his foundation will be issuing a grant of $20 million to more than 100 organizations that support environmental change. The superstar made this announcement at a Yale Climate Conference hosted by John Kerry, reported Variety.
He said that his foundation is proud to support such work both at home and abroad. He mentioned that it will help organizations to protect the environment including the oceans, forest and endangered species for future generations.
The Oscar-winning actor also urged people to immediately shift to renewable energy from fossil fuel and said that the renewable energy will help everyone to live in terms of clean transportation and sustainable agriculture so that a better future can be built.
The grants which were announced entails six different areas of climate change like, wildlife and landscape conservation, marine life and ocean conservation, innovative solutions, indigenous rights and the California program.
Terry Tamminen, CEO of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation said that the round of grants are coming at a time when there is a dearth of political leadership and the climatic changes are getting worst with devastating storms and heatwaves.
The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation was established in 1998, by the actor himself with an aim to restore balance in the ecosystem and protect the environment. The Foundation has a diverse range of projects from expanding protected areas on land and ocean to supporting small and indigenous organizations, who are working towards environment protection.
In 2016, while receiving his very first Oscar for the film The Revenant, DiCaprio said in his acceptance speech: "Climate change is real, it is happening right now, it is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating."
The actor has actively been a part of climate change activism. The campaigners who have been working with him over the years said that DiCaprio has been striving towards it honestly for quite some time and desperately wants some action to happen in this area.
The actor has been keenly participating in all the global events related to global challenges since 2014, like the Davos economic forum, private meeting with Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations secretary general, on the sidelines of the Paris climate negotiations, last December.
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