Leonardo DiCaprio has an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and three Golden Globe Awards.
But his latest award comes from an international team of scientists at London’s Royal Botanic Kew Gardens and Cameroon’s National Herbarium, who have honored the Hollywood actor and environmental activist by naming for a new tropical plant named after him.
According to a press release announcing the tropical tree, the species uvariopsis dicaprio from Ebo Forest, Cameroon, is the first species added to the 2022 new species list at RBG Kew.
The Ebo Forest comprises half of the Yabassi Key Biodiversity Area, an ancestral area for more than 40 local communities and home to gorillas, forest elephants and chimpanzees, according to the Key Area Biodiversity .
In botany, plants are often named after scientists who have shown dedication to a field of study.
DiCaprio drew attention to the Yabassi Key Biodiversity Area when the area was under threat from a mining concession last year.
He said in a post published to his verified Twitter account in August 2020.
A month later, the Cameroonian government revoked the logging rights.
“We greatly appreciated the support Leo gave us during our campaign to save Ebo last year, so it seems fitting to honor him in this way, naming a single species only.” in this forest, after him,” said Martin Cheek, a scientist at RBG Kew who was involved in the study, in a statement announcing the results, published in the journal Science Peer J on Thursday.
“If a logging concession goes ahead, we could potentially lose this species because logging and slash-and-burn farming often happens after the concession.”
Uvariopsis dicaprio is a critically endangered species because it lives in unprotected forest habitat, which can encounter dangers including logging and logging.
.
