Leonardo DiCaprio: Saving the Earth

Most of us know Leonardo DiCaprio as the actor with a gorgeous face. He became extremely famous with the movie Titanic which was shown in 1997. His acting career actually started in 1989. Even as a young boy, he was commended for his excellent skills in acting. Born Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio in 1974, he graced many covers of magazines, and was twice voted as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world by People magazine.

Aside from his active life in the movie industry, DiCaprio is an environmentalist. In his acceptance speech at the Global Green Millennium Awards night, he shared that he started his involvement in saving the Earth because of his fascination with science books. His exposure to books and museums led to his discovery of evolution and extinction of many species.

He said that it disturbed him to know that man is responsible for the disappearance of many creatures on the planet. Through his readings, he saw many interesting animals like the Quaga, Dodo bird, Tasmanian wolf or the Stellar sea cow, but felt a huge disappointment and hurt to know the fact that he would not be able to see them in his lifetime.

To a certain extent, he said that people of the past are to blame. Those people lived mostly by hunting, and little did they realize that they were not preserving those species for future generations.

DiCaprio asserted that the more he learned about our planet, the more he realized that the natural resources are not limitless. He considered it an unfortunate event that our forefathers had very little scientific understanding of their action, and until today --a hundred years later--people appear to be as uncaring and negligent in taking care of the environment.

The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation was established in 1998 with the objective of increasing awareness of environmental issues through participation of many organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council, Global Green, USA, the International Fund For Animal Welfare, and National Geographic Kids. To be able to reach to his audience, who are not only keen on watching him different roles in movies but also to learn about his stance on issues, the website www.leonardodicaprio.org was created.

The website shows two short films that he himself made. Aptly entitled the Global Warning and the Water Planet, both films are documentary short films, that explain about the condition of the environment, and possible alternative ways to save mother earth's resources. Also featured in this site are many interesting and informative articles about biodiversity, the oceans and more on global warming.

So as to reach out to the younger audience, DiCaprio's website has a portion called Kids. A page shows a transcript of an interview between him and the National Geographic Kids. Also, useful but simple tips in involving children in saving the environment are also given. Examples include planting of a butterfly garden, recycling and reducing the amount of time the family spend in a car.

Recently DiCaprio was on cover of the Vanity Fair's Green Issue. He was shown with a beautiful and immaculately white baby polar bear, Krut. DiCaprio flew to Iceland for the shoot, done by photographer Annie Lebowitz. Krut's pictures were taken in a Berlin Zoo and were added to DiCaprio's pictures. DiCaprio clearly wants to say his message across: Save mother Earth's natural resources. Let us hope that our children's children would appreciate our work for not neglecting our role in preserving this planet.