Poverty + Development

Leonardo DiCaprio is giving away $15 million to environmental causes

It's a titanic gesture toward stopping climate change.

By Leah Lamb for Fast Company 

Leonardo DiCaprio announced that his foundation will be give more than $15 million to fast-track cutting edge sustainability and conservation projects around the world, during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

We simply cannot afford to allow the corporate greed of the coal, oil and gas industries to determine the future of humanity.

Dicaprio, giving an acceptance speech for the Crystal Award, shared his astonishment at seeing ancient glaciers rapidly disappearing while traveling making a new documentary on how the climate crisis is changing the natural balance of our planet. “We simply cannot afford to allow the corporate greed of the coal, oil and gas industries to determine the future of humanity. Those entities with a financial interest in preserving this destructive system have denied—and even covered-up—the evidence of our changing climate. Enough is enough. You know better. The world knows better. History will place the blame for this devastation squarely at their feet.”

DiCaprio announced that his grants will support projects that have expanded protected areas on land and at sea, protecting iconic endangered species and empowered indigenous communities to fight back against corporate encroachment on their lands for the past decade. The donations are divided up among a number of organizations: $6 million to Oceana and Skytruth for Global Fishing Watch; $1 million to the Nature Conservancy for its Seychelles debt-for-nature swap project; $3.2 million to Rainforest Action Network and Haka to protect the Sumatran rainforest, $3.4 million to Clearwater and the Ceibo Alliance in South America; and $1.5 million to the Solutions Project.

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