Leonardo DiCaprio -- Celebrity Green Report
Written By Katherine Sansom
May 14, 2007
Leonardo DiCaprio, worth a reputed $25 million and listed 67th on the Forbes Rich List, has left his wild-partying, heart-throb days behind him, and has turned his attention to the more substantial matter of anthropogenic climate change.
The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation was set up in 1998, when Leo was 24, to work with other environmentalist agencies and charities to raise awareness of global warming, the depletion of natural resources and other environmental destruction. The Foundation is affiliated with The International Fund For Animal Welfare, National Geographic Kids, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and several other important organizations. One half of Leo’s website – at leonardodicaprio.org – has since been devoted to the Foundation, with a sub-section of this Eco-Site aimed at children.
The Foundation has made two short documentaries – ‘Global Warning’ (2003) and ‘Water Planet’ (2005) – that were written and narrated by Leo. A third, ‘11th Hour’, is due for release later this year, and there are also plans afoot for a reality television program, currently titled ‘E-topia’. In 1991, The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation was awarded the Martin Litton Environmental Warrior Award by Environment Now, a non-profit organization that describes itself as “the ‘SWAT’ team of the environment”; and Leo himself has received the Environmental Leadership Award from Global Green USA.
Leo has spoken with former US President Bill Clinton in America, and Israeli Vice President and former President Shimon Peres in Israel, to encourage them to take action on environmental issues. He is a member of the boards of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Global Green USA, and he appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair’s Green Issue earlier this year.
Leo was also one of the stars to arrive at the 2005 Academy Awards in a hybrid car.
Friend, fan and colleague, Martin Scorsese, described Leo as “responsible, in the sense that he takes his citizenship of the world very seriously”, and his work over the last decade certainly justifies this accolade.
RESOURCES:
http://www.leonardodicaprio.org
