Environment & Natural Resources News South Africa

Spider-Man working with Earth Hour, WWF SA

Following the recent media announcements that Spider-Man has been chosen as the global ambassador for Earth Hour in partnership with the WWF, South Africans have followed the lead of the masked super hero and will pledge their support.
Spider-Man working with Earth Hour, WWF SA

The campaign is titled "Be a Super Hero for the Planet. Use Your Power at earthhour.org".

Spider-Man is Earth Hour's first super hero ambassador and is partnering with the recently launched Restore the Roodeberg initiative to encourage all South Africans to help raise the much needed funds to ensure the Roodeberg is included as part of the Table Mountain National Park, opening up previously restricted land to hikers, runners, dog walkers and horse riders. The Roodeberg is a mountain landscape of exceptional beauty and species diversity that is of global conservation importance.

R9-million needed

In the spirit of Earth Hour on Saturday, 29 March, South African children gathered in the Roodeberg and stood symbolically as young super heroes for the planet to represent the R9-million needed to purchase this conservation-critical land for future generations.
Also supporting the cause at the Roodeberg was Danilo Acquisto, TV personality Hectic Nine-9; and Sven Ruygrok, Spud actor. They all pledged their support to go beyond the hour to get schools, businesses, family and friends to donate money to help protect this special piece of natural biodiversity and to continue to be super heroes for the planet.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro, which releases at cinemas across South Africa on 25 April 2014, is the most eco-friendly film produced by Sony Pictures. Sony Pictures will offset 4,000 tonnes of carbon through WWF-China's Gold Standard Verified 'Energy Efficient Stoves To Protect The Giant Panda" project (part of the Earth Hour Blue crowdfunding platform); these carbon offsets have rendered the entire physical production of the film, as well as its Asian publicity tour, carbon-neutral. The film's eco-friendly practices also include but are not limited to:

  • No plastic bottles on set (avoiding purchase of 193,000 plastic bottles).
  • 52% of the total waste stream (755 tonnes) from the film diverted from landfills.
  • 5,861 meals donated to local shelters to those in need.

The film's director and stars - Marc Webb, Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Jamie Foxx - are throwing their support behind Earth Hour Blue, a crowdfunding initiative to support environmental projects from around the world.

Super heroes and South Africans who would like to pledge their support and donate funds to Restore the Roodeberg, can go to https://earthhourblue.crowdonomic.com/project/1018-restore-the-roodeberg-1 or www.restoretheroodeberg.co.za for more information.

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