DiCaprio becomes IFAW global ambassador
By Nancy Tartaglione-Moore
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has set Leonardo DiCaprio as global ambassador for its Animal Action campaign to save elephants and shut down the international ivory trade, the org announced Tuesday.
The campaign, "Elephants, Never Forget," focuses on the crisis that elephants face 20 years after the international ivory trade ban was put in place.
Over the course of the year, IFAW will collect one million signatures urging governments to oppose any further international trade in ivory and step up efforts to combat poaching.
"The ivory trade fuels conflict and strife," said DiCaprio in a press release. "Elephants are killed by poachers so their tusks can be traded for weapons and drugs by international criminal organizations before becoming trinkets and jewelry for consumers. Authorities in 85 countries have seized almost 400 tons of ivory on the black market since the 1989 ivory trade ban."
"Many people around the world still have no idea that elephants are killed for their ivory tusks, and that's why public education is so important," DiCaprio added. "There were 1.3 million elephants in 1979; rampant poaching and other factors have reduced that by more than half, to an estimated 500,000."
IFAW's website is here.
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