Foundations backed by actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have launched a $200 million initiative to help save 100 of the world’s most threatened species, reports AP. The Phoenix Species Project aims to support long-term recovery efforts for critically endangered wildlife.
DiCaprio’s Re and the Bezos Earth Fund announced the project on Tuesday, calling it the largest single fund created specifically to recover critically endangered species. It will support animals including lemurs, salamanders, pangolins, pigs, tortoises and echidnas threatened by habitat loss, climate change and other pressures.
The project grew from DiCaprio and Re co-founder and CEO Wes Sechrest’s 2021 meeting with Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, chair and vice-chair of the Bezos Earth Fund. Further discussions with governments, environmental groups and Indigenous communities shaped the initiative.
Among the species receiving support are Madagascar’s golden-crowned sifaka, North Carolina’s Hickory Nut Gorge green salamander, the Visayan warty pig of the Philippines, Mexico’s Cozumel harvest mouse, the Galápagos pink land iguana, the Malayan pangolin, Tanzania’s pancake tortoise, Colombia’s starry night harlequin toad and Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna of New Guinea.
The project will provide sustained funding to conservation efforts that have made progress but often lack resources to continue.
“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,” said Tiana Andriamanana, executive director of Association Fanamby, one of the recipient organisations.
She said the new funding, combined with global cooperation and technical support, would create fresh opportunities to protect the species.
