Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

This year’s Academy Awards had some ties with themes common among environmentalists in the open water swimming community.

Mark Ruffalo, one of the supporters and activists behind Benoit Lemonte‘s The Longest Swim, played a key role in Spotlight, the movie that won the 2016 Best Picture Award.

Then long-time environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio won the Oscar in the Best Actor category for his role in The Revenant.

DiCaprio’s foundation (Leonard DiCaprio Foundation), established in 1998, brings attention and offers funding to protecting biodiversity, oceans conservation, wildlands conservation, and climate change.

Currently, his focus is on a number of environmental causes including the following initiatives:

*Protecting Threatened Sharks and Rays
*Recovery of Steller Sea Lions
*Protecting Sea Mammals from Drift Gillnets
*World’s Largest Marine Reserve
*Necklace’ of Arctic Marine Protected Areas
*Replenishing Coral Reefs In The Pacific Ocean
*Expedition to the Last Pristine Marine Areas
*Marine Protection in Vostochny Reserve
*Community-Driven Conservation In The Pacific Ocean
*Debt-for-Nature in the Seychelles
*Protecting the Far North
*Securing Chilean Waters for Sharks

*No Oil Drilling in the American Arctic
*IFAW Animal Action Education

DiCaprio’s acceptance speech is below:

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