The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation handed over $1 million to the Elephant Crisis Fund at a Malibu gala in 2014. The money directly supported a joint initiative by Save the Elephants and the Wildlife Conservation Network, which aimed to raise $5 million over three years to fight the illegal ivory trade.
The stakes were grim. Poachers had killed 22,000 elephants in 2012 alone, despite a global ban on ivory sales. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants, stated that the only future for the species required a combined effort from governments, organizations, and individuals. The Malibu event proved that point, as the $1 million grant from DiCaprio was matched by other attendees, pushing the total raise to $2 million.
DiCaprio’s involvement extended beyond the checkbook. In 2016, he produced the Netflix documentary 'The Ivory Game,' which Indiewire described as a "real-life ecological thriller." The film exposed the hidden war of the ivory trade, aligning with the United States' decision that same year to impose a near-total ban on the commercial trade of African elephant ivory.
The actor’s conservation portfolio includes a $38.8 million art auction in 2013 and $3 million grants to both Oceana and WWF. Most recently, DiCaprio and the Bezos Earth Fund launched the Phoenix Species Project, a $200 million effort to recover 100 endangered species across 30 countries. As poaching data remains contested, with some groups citing figures over 30,000 deaths, the pressure on these funding mechanisms to deliver tangible results intensifies.