You might remember back in February when Jeff Bezos announced his $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund to combat the effects of climate change over the next several years. Now, Bezos has announced the first slate of recipients of some of that money, with nearly $800 million going to several different environmental groups doing their own work on what Bezos (along with most scientists) says is the most important cause of our time.
Bezos took to Instagram to make the announcement, prefacing the list of organizations receiving the first Bezos Earth Fund grants like this:
"I've spent the past several months learning from a group of incredibly smart people who've made it their life's work to fight climate change and its impact on communities around the world. I'm inspired by what they're doing, and excited to help them scale. Today, I'm pleased to announce the first Bezos Earth Fund recipients—16 organizations working on innovative, ambitious, and needle-moving solutions. This $791 million in donations is just the beginning of my $10 billion commitment to fund scientists, activists, NGOs, and others. We can all protect Earth's future by taking bold action now."
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After that, Bezos listed all of the organizations receiving the almost $800 million in grants, and as you might expect given the tremendous sum of money involved, it's a long list:
"Here are the grantees: The Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund, ClimateWorks Foundation, Dream Corps Green For All, Eden Reforestation Projects, Energy Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, The Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, NDN Collective, Rocky Mountain Institute, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, The Solutions Project, Union of Concerned Scientists, World Resources Institute, and World Wildlife Fund."
As you can see, Bezos didn't specify how much money each of these organizations got, or what they intend to do with the money. But one of the higher-profile orgs on the list, the World Wildlife Fund, according to The Independent made an announcement of its own, saying they received $100 million from the Bezos Earth Fund and that they will be using it on an expansive project to protect and replant mangroves in Colombia, Madagascar, Fiji, and Mexico, as well as seaweed farming and general environmental protection in the Amazon, Central America, and Africa.
