Bethenny Frankelis the latest celebrity promising to help with the raging fires in the Amazon rainforest.
The reality star, who recently announced her exit fromTheReal Housewives of New York, on Saturday announced her plans to send a supertanker plane to the area, and that she is strategizing other ways to help with the ongoing environmental crisis.
“Gearing up to attack the Amazon crisis,specifically saving the lives of indigenous tribes & animals,” she wrote in atweeton Saturday. “Tomorrow I’ll get specific but,i’m chartering a full size supertanker(fire truck in a plane)to spray massive area. I’ll reach out w details for you to donate.Planning trip.#bstrong”
Over the next several days, Frankel, 48, responded to several tweets about her plans and specifically stressed the need to share real information — several celebrities have been calling for action to stop the fires, butsharing photos that were taken years ago.
On Tuesday, she sharedseveral photosof what she says is the blazing Amazon, saying that the pictures were “legitimate” and taken within the past week.
Crowdrise.com
Later on Tuesday, Frankel shared a link to aCrowdRise campaign, which revealed that teams from Frankel’sBStrong disaster relief programhad arrived in Bolivia on Monday.
“This effort is particularly challenging because chartering fire fighting planes presents unique logistical issues and is extremely expensive to do,” the campaign’s page says.
“Right now, Bolivia is ground zero for this emergency fire situation, so this is where we will stage our team to provide resources, fire fighting, and direct humanitarian aid,” the page continues. “Not only are these fires devastating plant and animal life, they are are also harming and displacing millions of people living in the area in already economically disadvantaged situations.”
While the majority of the Amazon rainforest is in Brazil, about 6 percent is in Bolivia, with the forest extending into parts of Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and other countries as well,according to Yale’s Global Forest Atlas.
TheGlobal SuperTanker Service, which provides the types of planes that Frankel is trying to charter,sent its Boeing 747-400 firefighting plane to Bolivialast Thursday.
“In all honesty, I think it’s going to take rain,” CEO Dan Reesetold PEOPLEon Monday. “We are going to do our part to help them get the fires they can, where they can get people, but as extensive as these fires are across this continent, it’s unfathomable to imagine these fires.”
“When we were flying from 38,000 feet, it was just unbelievable [seeing] the scene, the numbers of fires and size from that altitude across the country,” he continued. “There is a lot of fire. My guess is that we were looking at the fire in other countries as well.”
“Our missions have been down on the Paraguay-Brazilian border, so it’s kind of across the country and those distances from the airport,” Reese added. “We are working out of the airbase [and working] from 130 miles to 360 miles.”
The Amazon has been burning for weeks, and there have been at least 74,000 fires, according to Brazil’sNational Institute for Space Research(INPE),Vox reportedon Monday.
This isn’t the first time that Frankel has aided in environmental crisis.
Back in 2017 and 2018, the Skinnygirl mogul helpedraise funds and brought planeswith needed supplies to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
Frankelpreviously told PEOPLEthat working in disaster relief has changed her life.
“Getting involved in crisis relief, it’s changed my life,” she said. “Puerto Rico brought together so many people for me, especially on this side. Many people in Miami, many people that I know and people who are not wealthy. Nurses, teachers, people who are unemployed, coming together, working 24 hours a day because people understood the gravity of the situation.”
source: people.com
