Jeff Bezos and Leonardo DiCaprio have come a long way, from Bezos jokingly threatening to throw the handsome Hollywood star off a cliff to the two joining hands on what is being billed as the largest single philanthropic initiative in history dedicated exclusively to recovering Critically Endangered and Extinct in the Wild species. The Amazon founder and The Revenant star have launched the Phoenix Species Project with a $200 million commitment to recover 100 species in 30 countries across five continents. Of that amount, $100 million, or half, will come from the Bezos Earth Fund. The other $100 million will come through Re:wild, with support from Leonardo DiCaprio, Age of Union and the Todd Graves Family Foundation.
The $200 million commitment will provide five years of sustained support for each species through more than 100 local and international partners, with the hope that additional donations will follow and allow the work to continue, reported APNews. It will help save species such as the golden-crowned sifaka; the Hickory Nut Gorge green salamander, of which only about 500 are believed to survive; the Visayan warty pig; Mexico’s Cozumel harvest mouse; the pink land iguana, found only on Wolf Volcano in the Galápagos Islands; and Tanzania’s pancake tortoise, named for its flat, flexible shell.
In a video recorded west of Melbourne, Australia, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, co-chair of the Bezos Earth Fund, talks about a reptile whose disappearance from the planet could affect an entire ecosystem. The wife of one of the world’s fourth richest man, worth $286 billion, takes her followers through several such examples from different corners of the world, from Indonesia to Mexico, as the project attempts to save 100 species and give the world 100 comeback stories to celebrate.
The people behind the initiative bring more than money; they also have long-standing connections with animals and nature. As a child, DiCaprio wanted to become a marine biologist and repeatedly visited Los Angeles’s La Brea Tar Pits. He later recalled, “I wanted to be a marine biologist. I became fascinated with different species of animals that became extinct as a result of man.” Bezos, meanwhile, spent his summers from the ages of four to 16 on his maternal grandfather’s working ranch in Texas. As he grew older, he repaired windmills, laid fencing and pipelines, and helped vaccinate the animals.
Leo, come over here, I want to show you something… @LeoDiCaprio https://t.co/Gt2v9JZTNz pic.twitter.com/KqGLB839NI
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) November 8, 2021
After spending billions protecting vast forests, oceans and landscapes, Bezos is now zooming in on the individual creatures that could disappear within them. Five of the 100 species have already disappeared from the wild, including a bird relearning how to parent and a desert fish waiting for humans to rebuild its vanished spring. “We’ve protected the golden-crowned sifaka for years on a budget that would never match what this species deserves, but letting it go extinct was never an option,” Tiana Andriamanana, executive director of Association Fanamby, one of the groups receiving a grant through the initiative, said in a statement. “This funding, this global platform and technical support change what is possible.” In the past the duo joined hands with a $200 million donation through the Protect Our Planet Challenge. The generous donation focused on Brazil achieving zero deforestation in the Amazon.
