Earth Alliance, a new
environmental organization made by Leonardo DiCaprio and his benevolent
friends, Laurene Powell Jobs and Brian Sheth, has vowed $5 million to help
preserve the Amazon rainforest.
Fires have surged in the
Amazon this year, the world's biggest rainforest is burning at remarkable rate
since 2013, and Brazil's National Institute for Space Research says more than
one-and-a-half soccer fields of Amazon rainforest are being devastated every
minute of every day. The Amazon, which generates about 20% of Earth's oxygen,
is usually referred to as "the planet's lungs." It is considered very
important in slowing global warming.
“#EarthAlliance has formed
an emergency Amazon Forest Fund with $5m to focus critical resources for
indigenous communities and other local partners working to protect the
biodiversity of the Amazon against the surge of fires,” the organization tweeted on Sunday.
Earth Alliance stated that
its emergency fund will be dispersed between five local organizations that are
"combating the fires, protecting indigenous lands, and providing relief to
the communities impacted." They are: Instituto Associacao Floresta
Protegida, Coordination of the Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian
Amazon, Instituto Kabu, Instituto Raoni and Instituto Socioambiental.
The Leonardo DiCaprio
Foundation combined with Earth Alliance last month to "help address the critical
dangers to our planet's life support systems." This partnership builds on
DiCaprio's years of activism on the climate crisis.
"Since its founding in
1998, LDF has provided more than $100 million in grants to projects in all five
oceans and across all seven continents," a July press release said.
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