Amazon founder Jeff Bezos donated millions of dollars to the Smithsonian Institute this month in the form of a research grant.
Bezos, one of the richest men on the planet, donated $12 million to the Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute facility and its GEO-TREES project.
"The Bezos Earth Fund is pleased to support and partner on this powerful project to use decades of long-term data to understand forest carbon," said Bezos Earth Fund Managing Director and Leader for Nature Solutions Cristián Samper.
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Samper added, "There are very few places like the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, where the tropical rainforest has been studied for 100 years. The longevity of tropical research at the Smithsonian, together with the expansion of a global network of forest study sites, will help address the climate crisis we face in a way not possible anywhere else."
GEO-TREES offers an international system for cataloging forest data and individual tree measurements via aerial lasers and satellite imaging, according to the Smithsonian Institute.
"The GEO-TREES project is as exciting as it is essential for our detailed understanding of the interplay between tropical forests and carbon capture," Smithsonian secretary Lonnie Bunch said in an announcement of the grant.
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Bunch continued, "Scientific research has been at the heart of the Smithsonian’s mission for more than 176 years, and the grant from the Bezos Earth Fund demonstrates the value of support and collaboration in the search for solutions to our planet’s shared challenges."
Bezos founded his namesake ecological fund in 2021 with a goal of donating $10 billion to environmental charities by 2030.
The Bezos Earth Fund has donated over $1.6 billion in the last two years.
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Bezos has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the Smithsonian Institute over the years.
In 2021, Bezos made the largest donation to the Smithsonian since the museum was first founded, giving $70 million to renovate the National Air and Space Museum and $130 million to build a new education complex.
Fox Business's Paul Best contributed to this report.
