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View Full Version : DiCaprio cheats death in bid to save tigers


Ilona
11-24-2010, 11:24 AM
Titantic star and eco-warrior Leonardo DiCaprio’s efforts to support the tiger were seconds from disaster as he tried to come to an international conservation forum in St. Petersburg.

DiCaprio was among 200 passengers on a flight from New York to Moscow which was forced to make an emergency landing after an engine blew up shortly after take off.

Delta Air’s Boeing-767 flew out over the Atlantic to dump part of its fuel load before returning to make a safe landing at JFK airport.

Autograph session

DiCaprio thanked the pilots who successfully landed the plane and signed a lot of autographs for crew and passengers.

“DiCaprio wishes to commend the actions of the pilot and flight crew in bringing the plane to a safe landing,” a representative of the 36-year-old actor was quoted as saying by the Wall Street Journal.

The actor was on his way to St Petersburg to attend the International Tiger Conservation Forum that runs November 21-24.

Saving tigers

St. Petersburg is hosting a forum to save tigers The participants of the forum will discuss a plan to double the tiger population over the next 12 years, which will require up to $350 million from the international community.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will address the International Tiger Conservation Forum on Tuesday, RIA Novosti reported, while his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao and World Bank chief Robert Zoellick will join him.

Representatives of Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), Interpol, the World Bank, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the World Customs Organisation will sign agreements on creating a consortium on fight against poaching.

James Leape, the director general of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), said at the forum that the WWF plans to spend $85 million in the next five years on programs aimed at restoring the tiger population.

DiCaprio is not the only star to pledge his support to the cause; anyone travelling on Aeroexpress services to Moscow’s airports will have seen the likes of Russia’s Ilya Lugatenko and Zhanna Friske appearing in WWF adverts about the on-going Year of the Tiger.

There are about 3,200 tigers left in the world, living in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam. A century ago there were about 100,000 wild tigers in Asia and the Russian Far East.

The Moscow News

Ilona
11-24-2010, 11:28 AM
Leo DiCaprio is a “real man”, according to Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin.

The two met in St. Petersburg on the final day of an international conference to protect tigers – with the Hollywood star braving a plane-crash scare to join the big event.

And he arrived with a gift of $1 million for the campaign to save the big cats.

“I would like to thank you for coming,” Putin said. “A man with less strong nerves might have refused and thought [the emergency landing] was a sign that you should not come.”

The actor, no stranger to trans-Atlantic tragedy after his role in Titantic, admitted that the thought did cross his mind, RIA Novosti reported.

Family connection

While DiCaprio has long campaigned for animal welfare, he also had a personal reason to come to Russia.

“The name of my ancestors was Smirnov,” he said. “I always wanted to bring my grandmother to St. Petersburg but that never came to fruition before she died two years ago.”

Although DiCaprio speaks no Russian himself, he was promised a warm welcome beside the Baltic.

“I’m sure that when you get to know St. Petersburg you will be proud of your Russian roots,” Putin told him.

Big cats

Aside from the star-gazing – which also featured supermodel Naomi Campbell and Russian rock star Ilya Lagutenko of Mumiy Troll – there was some serious discussion about how to save the world’s dwindling tiger population.

From the taiga of Russia’s far east to the depths of Bengal, the big cat is under threat from poaching and from loss of habitat, seeing the population in the wild plummet to as little as 3,000.

And Putin explained that Russia is planning a special programme to support the native tiger population and preserve the northern-most species of the big cat.

“We have to do much more,” said the PM. “However experts believe that at the moment we have the optimum number of tigers, based on the land that exists for them.

“It is not just territory, proper food supplies are equally important.”

The conference was attended by representatives of the 13 countries where tigers live and leaders of the WWF wildlife charity.

This year’s “Save the Tiger” campaign has raised $20 million, and the heads of state at the former have agreed a declaration to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022.

The Moscow News

Ilona
11-24-2010, 11:35 AM
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