Following the news that the Amazon rainforest is currently enduring some of the worst fires we’ve ever seen, Leo DiCaprio and his new joint not-for-profit foundation, Earth Alliance, has committed around $7.46million (AUD) to the aid and preservation of what is regarded as the Earth’s lungs.
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With reports that Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) recorded a huge 72,000 fires in the rainforest between January and August (up from around 40k in previous dry seasons), and that some of those have been deliberately lit by farmers looking to clear land for future crops.
Earth Alliance has pledged to give a generous amount of money to help support local organisations fighting the blazes, protect indigenous lands, and providing relief and assistance to local communities affected by the upswing in deforestation.
As it’s been detailed before, the main factor for the huge surge in fires is due to Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, loosening the laws around where companies and farmers can raze forestry to the ground to prepare the soil for new crops.
The INPE has also ruled out natural phenomena as the main catalyst for the devastating fires that blanketed São Paulo with smoke last week, and was spotted from NASA satellites from space.
This is São Paulo yesterday at 3:50 pm. When I heard that the black sky over SP was due to cattle ranchers burning down the Amazon Forest in support of the BR president, I thought it was a hoax. pic.twitter.com/W3vLPpfrKm
— Claudia, Cau, Cacau, Mamain (@CauCiardi) August 20, 2019
August 2019 is continuing an active Amazon fire season, with large and intense fires burning in the region. @NASA satellites tracked actively burning fires across South America and captured images of smoke in the last week. https://t.co/EZKu01MPHg pic.twitter.com/VEoNZi2KJQ
— NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) August 23, 2019
Earth Alliance has also kicked up an emergency fund for the Amazon fires, where 100% of the donations go to specific initiatives directly working in the Amazon and affected communities and wildlife.
So if you’re feeling a bit helpless about it all from over here in Australia, you’re able to help out with direct action through monetary donations.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B1ltR2QgDXT/
Earth Alliance was formed in early July between Leo DiCaprio, the wife of the late Steve Jobs and business executive, Laurene Powell Jobs, and investor and philanthropist Brian Sheth, and will utilise the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, the Global Wildlife Conservation and the Emerson Collective to ” work globally to protect ecosystems and wildlife, ensure climate justice, support renewable energy, and secure indigenous rights to the benefit of all life on Earth.”
