Leonardo DiCaprio In Indonesia Fighting For The Rainforest And Leuser Ecosystem
Fresh off the Oscar block for his role in The Revenant, Leonardo DiCaprio has been visiting Sumatra, Indonesia, fighting for the rainforest and the Leuser Ecosystem, an area threatened by palm oil plantations, logging, mining, and other developmental threats.
DiCaprio has been working with local groups at Mount Leuser National Park, an area where the ecosystem necessary to regulate Earth’s climate is facing serious development threats.
Everyone who watched the 2016 Oscars heard the speech made by Leonardo DiCaprio after receiving his award. He spoke of the dangers and consequences of climate change. To show how serious he was about that speech, DiCaprio is actively fighting for the environment. DiCaprio is working with local groups in the Mount Leuser National Park to help preserve the area’s critically important ecosystem.
The Jakarta Post noted that the Oscar-winning actor and environmental activist spent the weekend in the rainforest with fellow actors Adrien Brody and Fisher Stevens. They toured the Mount Leuser National Park on Sunday and made a stop at the park’s research facility, where they were greeted by three Sumatran orangutans, as can be seen in the Instagram image above.
He also met up with a couple of endangered elephants, as well as conservationists in the area. DiCaprio posted the image below to Instagram, saying the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation is “supporting local partners to establish a mega-fauna sanctuary” in the Leuser ecosystem.
He is posing in the photo with two Indonesian conservationists along with two endangered elephants, stating that the rainforests in the ecosystem are “considered one of the world’s best remaining habitat for the critically endangered Sumatran #elephant. In these forests, ancient elephant migratory paths are still used by some of the last #wild herds of Sumatran elephants.”
“But the expansion of Palm Oil plantations is fragmenting the #forest and cutting off key elephant migratory corridors, making it more difficult for elephant families to find adequate sources of food and water.”
As reported by the Guardian, HAkA, an NGO based in the Aceh region of Indonesia, said in a statement that the ecosystem “plays a critical role in helping regulate the Earth’s climate by absorbing carbon pollution and storing massive amounts of carbon in its lowland rainforests and peat lands.”
Together we can save the Leuser Ecosystem. The last place on earth where elephants, tigers, rhinos and orangutan… https://t.co/GhNYEUaoip
— Adrien Brody (@adrienbrody) March 26, 2016
The statement went on to add that millions of local people depend directly on the Leuser Ecosystem for their livelihoods and that this is the central source of their clean water supply.
According to HAkA, the area’s forested watersheds also minimize the “number and severity of environmental disasters in the region, which already kill many and cost millions of dollars each year.”
Leonardo DiCaprio travels to Sumatra to support conservation https://t.co/NcYj7mwhvi #SaveLeuserEcosystem pic.twitter.com/Hu8e6lUA1M
— Paul HILTON (@pauljhilton) March 29, 2016
Reportedly, back in January, Aceh citizens filed a class action lawsuit against the Aceh provincial government’s Spatial Land Use Plan, which would reportedly open Leuser’s forests to clearing for logs, mining, and oil palm plantations.
A Change.org petition has been launched by activists and is being promoted by DiCaprio to urge Indonesian President Joko Widodo to cancel the spatial plan in the Leuser Ecosystem area.
The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, established back in 1998, will partner with the Acehnese conservationist Rudi Putra in efforts to build a megafauna sanctuary in the Leuser ecosystem and will be constructing barriers, training wildlife rangers and patrols, and reporting any habitat destruction in the area.
Reportedly, the Leuser Ecosystem, which is located in both the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra, covers 6.5 million acres of tropical lowland rainforests, mountains, and peatlands.
According to Leonardo DiCaprio, the area is the last place on Earth where Sumatran tigers, orangutans, rhinos, and elephants coexist in the wild. He fears that without adequate protection, these wildlife species will likely be pushed to extinction.
[Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
