HOLLYWOOD actor Leonardo DiCaprio has backed the expansion of an award-winning Edinburgh Napier University conservation project in Kenya with a generous donation.
In pictures: Leonardo DiCaprio greets fans as he visits Edinburgh restaurant
The university initiative was included in a round of grants from the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation which were announced by the film star at a conference at Yale University.
In pictures: Leonardo DiCaprio greets fans as he visits Edinburgh restaurant
The project in Kenya’s Gazi Bay, 50km south of Mombasa, was recently named as a winner of the 2017 Equator Prize by the United Nations Development Programme.
Now The Revenant and Wolf of Wall Street actor has announced funding of $50,000, around £37,000, from the Foundation he established to try to repeat the project’s success in the Vanga Blue Forest area of the east African country.
In pictures: Leonardo DiCaprio greets fans as he visits Edinburgh restaurant
Mikoko Pamoja - called Mangroves Together, in Swahili - involves Edinburgh-based scientists working with local villagers and researchers to protect threatened mangrove forests and fund community development.
Above: Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant
The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation works with environmental experts, organisations and philanthropists to protect threatened ecosystems, and has gradually built a significant international grant-making operation.
In pictures: Leonardo DiCaprio greets fans as he visits Edinburgh restaurant
Above: Mombasa, Kenya. Image: Google
Addressing a Yale climate change conference last week, hosted by former US Secretary of State John Kerry’s Kerry Initiative, LDF chairman DiCaprio said they were proud to support the environmental work of more than 100 organisations at home and abroad.
In pictures: Leonardo DiCaprio greets fans as he visits Edinburgh restaurant
He added: “These grantees are active on the ground, protecting our oceans, forests and endangered species for future generations – and tackling the urgent, existential challenges of climate change.”
Mangrove forests protect coastal communities from storms and tsunamis and are efficient natural carbon sinks, locking and storing CO2 at up to five times the rate of tropical rainforests.
They also form an important habitat for fish and wildlife.
In pictures: Leonardo DiCaprio greets fans as he visits Edinburgh restaurant
However, they are being destroyed at an alarming rate, threatening the livelihoods of local farmers and fishermen and triggering the release of greenhouse gases.
Former US Secretary of State John Kerry, above, heard of Mombasa project
Professor Mark Huxham, who is leading Edinburgh Napier’s work in the area, said: “The new funding will directly support a democratic community organisation which will mobilise volunteers and staff in tree protection, conservation monitoring, education and investment in local development.”
In pictures: Leonardo DiCaprio greets fans as he visits Edinburgh restaurant
Leonardo DiCaprio, above, established his Foundation in 1998 with the aim of protecting the world’s last wild places.
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