The sum donated by actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio will be used to fund various conservation operations in the Galápagos Islands.
Leonardo DiCaprio continues to commit himself to environmental causes. This time, following the collapse of Darwin's Arch in the Galápagos Islands — the rock formation that, according to a statement by Ecuador's Ministry of the Environment, crumbled due to natural erosion — the environmentalist and Hollywood actor has announced his intention to donate, immediately, 43 million dollars (approximately 35 million euros) to fund a wide-ranging series of conservation operations across the Pacific Ocean archipelago.
Of the well-known rock formation, located in the northern part of the archipelago, only the two stone columns that once supported Darwin's Arch remain today, the arch itself having fallen into the sea as a consequence of natural erosion. In an environmental initiative unrelated to the collapse of the arch, DiCaprio has launched Rewild, of which the actor is one of the founders, to carry out a number of local ecosystem restoration projects.
Specifically, the actor's donations will fund projects including the restoration of Floreana Island, which is home to more than 50 at-risk species, and the reintroduction of 13 locally extinct species, among them the Floreana mockingbird, the first mockingbird described by Charles Darwin. That is not all: funding will also go towards a captive breeding programme and other activities aimed at preventing the extinction of the red iguana and at strengthening measures to protect the Galápagos' marine resources from the human impact of ecotourism.
DiCaprio is no stranger to this kind of initiative. In 1998, following the success of the film Titanic, he founded the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, a non-profit organisation whose aim is to promote environmental awareness. In the past, the actor has already donated several million euros to the Wwf, and has also mobilised on multiple occasions to launch petitions to protect animals. Together with Will Smith, he had also launched a limited-edition eco-friendly shoe line, the proceeds of which were donated to the earth alliance Association.
Among his very latest initiatives are a three-million-dollar donation to help combat the fires that struck Australia in 2020, and to assist people and animals and restore the destroyed ecosystems; and the decision to contribute two million dollars to the protection of Virunga National Park, in Congo, which is threatened by terrorists, by coronavirus and by poaching.
