Leo faces ban from Indonesia for orangutan selfie
theweathernetwork.com
Saturday, April 2, 2016, 3:10 PM - Hollywood icon Leonardo DiCaprio might be facing a ban from entering Indonesia after speaking out against the country's treatment of wildlife and the environment.
One of the world's most notable actors, DiCaprio has also spent a large part of his career advocating for environmental issues. In late March Leo used his social media accounts to raise awareness about the Sumatran orangutan, sharing a hard-to-resist selfie with the endangered animal.
"The critically endangered Sumatran orangutan is being pushed to the brink of extinction," DiCaprio wrote. "Here, at the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme’s Orangutan Quarantine Center, rescued orangutans are rehabilitated so they can be released back into the wild."
Heru Santoso, spokesman for the Directorate General for Immigration at the Law and Human Rights Ministry, told The Star that DiCaprio "used his visit to discredit the palm oil industry and the Indonesian government," the publication reports.
.@socp_tweets rescues and rehabilitates these amazing creatures. Support them at https://t.co/QBkLh0V81Z pic.twitter.com/HqEoF1vbnV
— Leonardo DiCaprio (@LeoDiCaprio) March 31, 2016
“We support his concern to save the Leuser ecosystem,” Santoso told The Star, “[b]ut we can blacklist him from returning to Indonesia at any time if he keeps posting incitement or provocative statements in his social media.”
Santoso adds that organizations or companies that object to DiCaprio's public comments are allowed to ask immigration authorities to bar the Oscar-winning actor from re-entering Indonesia -- although this has yet to happen.
Stand with @haka_sumatra to #SaveLeuserEcosystem: https://t.co/dWdlp1d81c pic.twitter.com/NdATZxKx82
— Leonardo DiCaprio (@LeoDiCaprio) March 29, 2016
LEO ON CLIMATE CHANGE
This certainly isn't the first time Leo has publicly shown his passion for preserving and saving the planet, in fact, he used his Oscar speech for The Revenant to raise awareness about climate change. He says the film was about a "man's relationship to the natural world."
"Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow," DiCaprio said. "Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species."
The vision for the award winning film certainly came at a price as production was complicated with many weather related problems. Freezing temperatures, remote locations and ever-changing locations took their toll on the cast and crew, including at one of their sets in western Canada.
The arrival of warm Chinook winds in southern Alberta (mistakenly thought to be a troubling sign of climate change by lead actor DiCaprio) resulted in a sudden lack of snow. After trucking in snow from other spots as a temporary solution, the production was forced to relocate to snowier settings in Argentina in order to complete the film.
"For our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed. Let us not take this planet for granted," DiCaprio added in his acceptance speech.
WATCH: Leo vs. Chinook Winds
SOURCE: The Toronto Star
