Supermodel launches Amazon project - 22/10/09

A campaign to save one billion Amazonian rainforest trees has been launched by supermodel and Cambridge University student Lily Cole.

The 21-year-old was in Kew Gardens, south-west London, to promote the Sky Rainforest Rescue campaign.

The three-year project hopes to preserve over three million hectares of trees in Acre, north west Brazil.

Run by broadcaster Sky with the conservation body WWF, working with the state government of Acre, the initiative aims to provide economic incentives for local communities to preserve the rainforest.

Almost all - 90% - of the region is covered by dense tropical and bamboo forest and is home to species including jaguars, pink river dolphins, scarlet macaws, howler monkeys and giant otters.

Sky and WWF have called for donations to the campaign with every £10 helping to save 500 trees.

The broadcaster said it would match donations to the campaign pound for pound, up to a joint target of £4 million to get the project under way.

Cole said: "The destruction of the rainforest is having a huge impact on our climate and on the millions of animal and plant species and the millions of people who live there.

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