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Thursday, June 21, 2007

Angelina abandons her Cambodian project

This is overwhelmingly typical of celebrities, who are so fickle and shallow they adopt pet causes, keep with them for a few years, and then move onto the next one. Remember Sheryl Crow used to be all over VH1's Save the Music? Now, she's on to battling global warming, one sheet of toilet paper at a time!

Angelina Jolie, "humanitarian"/UN propaganda puppet-ambassador, is known to adopt kids every few months. Her first adopted child, Maddox, was from Cambodia. She was awarded citizenship by Cambodian king Norodom Sihamoni (in addition to her "Citizen of the World" designation by the United Nations Correspondents Association).

One pet project she created was the Maddox Jolie Project:

The overall goal of this project is to protect and rehabilitate the wildlife, eco-system and watershed conservation values of the Samlaut Multiple Use Area, Battambang Province.

Cambodia has had a long history in protected area development. By the time of independence in 1957 over two million hectares of Cambodia’s forest was designated as either wildlife sanctuary or forest protection reserves. The subsequent intervention of political insecurity, war, and political isolation resulted in the neglect of these reserves. However, the re-establishment of protected areas has become an integral part of Cambodia’s national rehabilitation since the beginning of the post-war period. A key aspect of this development has been efforts to provide for nature conservation and wildlife protection. This includes the designation of 23 separate protected areas by Royal Decree in November 1993.

The Samlaut Multiple-Use Management Area is one of these. Located on the Cambodian – Thai border within an isolated portion of far western Cambodia, it has a total area of approximately 60,000 hectares. About 39,000 ha. lie within the municipality of Pailin whilst the remaining 21,000 ha. lie within Samlaut district of Battambang province. Its boundaries follow old road alignments, some of which have been maintained in trafficable condition and river and stream courses. The reserve was therefore designated as a multiple-use management area because of concerns that the inevitability of industrialized gemstone mining would lead to the substantive degradation of its nature conservation values.


Project status:

Because of lack of funds the future of this project is uncertain.


Surprise, surprise.

Kids, this is what we call spreading yourself too thin. Celebrities do this often. It's not exactly like Angelina Jolie doesn't have enough money to continue to fund the project. I mean, she prostitutes photos of her kids left and right to whichever magazine happens to be the highest bidder. Couldn't she use some of that money?

My guess is that she probably forgot about it and moved onto something more publicity grabbing. Whoops! I meant, something more important.


Angelina Jolie and her Cambodian son, Maddox

3 comments:

Ian Taylor Photographer said...

I lived in Cambodia for 6 years. The problem with this type of project is that once it's turned over to local staff, the chances of it becoming corrupt are quite high. This means that the boss will take a portion of every employee's salary. They will siphon off funds with complete impunity. I don't think her eyes were fully open when she went into this.

Jolie is well respected in Cambodia and has donated money to other projects. To suggest that she bailed on this because she wasn't getting enough publicity out of it is very cynical IMO.

COPioneer said...

Ian, you make a good point. In fact, the BEST idea I've heard is that we should cut off ALL "humanitarian" aid to all 3rd world countries.

Does that sound cold hearted? It's a long run solution. The people will start having to TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES!

It's a novel concept. The WHOLE of Africa was much more independent and well off before they started getting free handouts.

Larry said...

A very competent actress -- but I don't think this woman is as physically beautiful as most of the press hawks her up to be. I've seen a few photos sans makeup. Neck-down a "9.0", however. I know, I know, I'm a blatant chauvinist -- and that the most important beauty is within.