Leonardo DiCaprio’s Foundation To Donate $3 Million To Australia Wildfire Relief Efforts

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Earth Alliance environmental organization is the latest to donate big bucks to help the wildfire relief efforts in Australia. The foundation said in a statement that it will donate $3 million to aid an “international response to the catastrophic bushfires” that have been raging in the country since September.

DiCaprio’s organization will add to donations from Australian actress-comedian Celeste Barber, who broke a Facebook record for a fundraiser that raised over $32 million for firefighting efforts. Chris Hemsworth and Elton John each has pledged $1 million via social media. Metallica also has pledged a donation of several hundred thousand dollars. Phoebe Waller-Bridge said at the Golden Globes on Sunday that she would auction off her Globes outfit and have the proceeds go to firefighter relief.

Earth Alliance was launched last year to combat climate change and biodiversity loss. Oscar winner DiCaprio serves as the foundation’s co-chair alongside philanthropists Laurene Powell Jobs and Brian Sheth. The foundation also donated millions to help the wildfires that ravaged the Amazon rainforest last year.

The wildfires, fueled by drought and the country’s hottest and driest year on record, have burned an area twice the size of the state of Maryland, killed at least 25 people and an estimated one billion animals and their habitat, and destroyed 2,000 homes.