September 10th 2007
Mel Gibson Passionate About Preserving Mayan History, Rainforest
Filed under: campaigns — michael @ 12:16 pm
As we wrote about earlier last month, Mel Gibson is selling off his Malibu estate and purchasing a a $24 million 400-acre ranch in Costa Rica. Since filming the epic Apocalypto, Gibson has fallen in love with the region and sees this new home as the ideal retreat from Hollywood.
In a recent interview, Gibson also revealed his passion for preserving the history and environment of the ancient Mayan civilization by lending his vocal and financial support to the establishment of a 525,000-acre national park. To date, he has donated more than $500,000 to help protect the area from logging and farming. From the article,
“Star: There seems to be a fair bit of opposition to the project from the rural farmer and loggers.
Gibson: Here’s the deal: the forest is threatened and it’s the last remaining rainforest in Central America. If it burns and there are fires all around, it’s gone. People are trying to encroach and log it. Once you put a road in there, it’s over. All 26 cities will go. You won’t find the libraries, the tombs or who walked across the Baring Strait from Asia to get there.
I tell you, these Mayan cities hold the key to a bunch of stuff. And they were sophisticated, like Pompeii. These cities are enormous. These were huge civilisations. These people who are opposing the project just don’t understand how important a find this really is. I’ll even give loggers the same amount of money they’d get for the trees to not touch them and I have done that.
If you turn the forests into tourism, you’d get a hundred-fold what you might get if you were to log them. I’m putting money into their pockets. A lot of these people don’t know what is really going on. And they believe a lot of things that they are told. And there are people who are malicious, people out for short-term gain. The newspapers are too quick to paint a bad picture of me.”
We give credit to Mel for working hard to preserve an amazing slice of history and environment. The interview also talks a bit about his involvement with the eco-friendly company Green Rubber, and his insistence at becoming involved in initiatives that help make a differene for the world. Hit the jump to check it out!
[...] Jesus Budda wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAs we wrote about earlier last month, Mel Gibson is selling off his Malibu estate and purchasing aa $24 million 400-acre ranch in Costa Rica. Since filming the epic Apocalypto, Gibson has fallen in love with the region and sees this new … [...]
Go Mel Go! Yay Mel!
We humans NEED the trees. The trees are the CO2 to O2 converts and the earth needs them hence we need them, every one of them. We humans need to realize that and STOP cutting them down. Our CO2 levels are too high now–take a look at the weather extremes we are suffering. SAVE THE TREES.
Color me a Tree Hugger.