Initiative to Revive Threatened Species with $200 Million Fund

Foundations led by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jeff Bezos have launched a significant initiative to allocate $200 million towards saving 100 of Earth’s most vulnerable species. This effort includes animals like endangered lemurs, pangolins, salamanders, pigs, and echidnas. DiCaprio’s organization, Re:wild, and the Bezos Earth Fund are heading this Phoenix Species Project. According to their announcement, this is the largest dedicated fund in history for the recovery of critically endangered species.

Leonardo DiCaprio has long sought ways to support species whose survival is threatened due to climate change. This project took a step forward in 2021, when DiCaprio and Re:wild co-founder Wes Sechrest, who is a biologist and serves as the organization’s CEO, engaged with Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos. They, along with various local governments, environmental groups, and Indigenous peoples, held discussions to explore how best to address the decline of vulnerable species. These discussions eventually led to the creation of the Phoenix Species Project.

The project aims to protect a variety of species including:

• The golden-crowned sifaka, a lemur native to Madagascar
• The Hickory Nut Gorge green salamander, a lungless species found in a small canyon in North Carolina
• The Visayan warty pig, which is exclusive to islands in the Philippines
• The Cozumel harvest mouse, inhabiting an island off the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico
• The pink land iguana, located only on Wolf Volcano in the Galápagos Islands
• The Malayan pangolin, also called the Sunda pangolin, from Southeast Asia
• The pancake tortoise from Tanzania, known for its unique flat, flexible shell
• The starry night harlequin toad, native to the Colombian mountains
• Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna from New Guinea, named for naturalist David Attenborough

The goals of the Phoenix Species Project include providing sustained support to previously underfunded efforts. Tiana Andriamanana, the Executive Director of Association Fanamby, which receives funding from the initiative, highlighted the importance of this support. In a statement, she remarked, “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. This funding, this global platform and technical support change what is possible.”