Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and his actor buddy Leonardo DiCaprio are catching some heavy flak recently, but for a seemingly bizarre reason: pledging millions of dollars to protect 100 of the world’s most threatened animal species.
The charity initiative, called the Phoenix Species Project, was first revealed on DiCaprio’s Instagram account, where the six-time academy award nominee described it as the “largest single philanthropic initiative ever dedicated to the recovery of Critically Endangered species, across 30 countries.”
“I could not be prouder to announce this,” DiCaprio continued. “Save these species, and we protect everything around them. The forests, the rivers, and the climate itself.”
For such a seemingly altruistic venture, the response to the announcement was strikingly polarized. As the Independent noted, DiCaprio and Bezos were summarily blasted for engaging in “greenwashing,” a negative term given to the strategy employed by massive corporations and the wealthy to cover their outsize impact on the environment with a little eco-charity.
