‘Titanic’ movie star DiCaprio congratulates Bangladesh govt

The ‘Titanic’ movie star and environmentalist Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio recently congratulated Bangladesh government for establishing a Marine Protected Area around Saint Martin’s Island, a small island in the northeastern part of the Bay of Bengal.

DiCaprio, also the winner of three Golden Globe Awards, wrote on his official Twitter account on Friday, “Congrats to the Government of Bangladesh, local communities & NGOs on a newly established Marine Protected Area around Saint Martin’s Island that will protect an incredible community of biodiversity and provide key habitat for Bangladesh’s only coral reef.”

The Hollywood actor has been zealously working with various projects including prevention of climate change, deforestation, and protection of wildlife for a long time. Scientists of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the United Kingdom honored him recently for his incredible work. They named a new species of tropical tree after his name. The tree was named as ‘Uvariopsis dicaprio’.

The government of Bangladesh announced the 1,743 square kilometers area at a depth of 70-meter of the Bay of Bengal adjacent to the only coral island in the country Saint Martin, as a ‘Marine Protected Area’.

St. Martin’s Island, also locally known as ‘Narikel Zinzira’, is a small island of only three square kilometers in the northeastern part of the Bay of Bengal and about 9 km south of the tip of the Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf peninsula.

Also a most admired tourist spot, St Martin’s Island is a safe haven to various species of fauna.