A crisis over burning forest in the Amazon is “incredibly tragic”, actor Leonardo DiCaprio said on Monday, urging governments to do more, amid growing international outrage over the damage to the world’s largest tropical rain forest.
A record number of fires is ravaging the rain forest, sparking concern because of the Amazon’s importance to the global environment. The rain forest is said to produce a fifth of the world’s oxygen.
MAJOR TRAGEDY
DiCaprio was speaking a day after Earth Alliance, an initiative he founded with philanthropists Laurene Powell Jobs and Brian Sheth, launched a $5-million emergency fund to help preserve the rain forest.
“There is a major tragedy going on worldwide because of climate change and what’s going on in the Amazon, which is really the lungs of the earth and vital to protecting us in the future,” he told Reuters.
“We’re trying to perpetuate others to be involved, informed and contribute if they can,” he said, speaking on the red carpet at the Japan premiere of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”.
There have been more than 78,000 forest fires in Brazil this year, nearly double last year’s total. Environmentalists blame speculators who burn vegetation to clear it in hopes of selling the land to farmers and ranchers.