Trudie Styler launches water campaign for the Amazon

September 14: STING's actress wife TRUDIE STYLER is spearheading a new campaign to get clean drinking water to rainforest tribespeople who are dying of thirst in South America.

Styler recently visited natives whose water supply has been polluted by years and years of rainforest destruction, and admits she was left scarred by just how bad conditions are in the Amazon.

So her charity the Rainforest Foundation and UNICEF in Ecuador have teamed up to get water tanks flown in to the worst hit areas.

She says, 'These enormous water tanks will have purified water, because these are tropical areas and it rains every day. For the first time in 35 years these people in the 1,700 square mile radius of this polluted land are having cleaner fresh water.

'This project will go on for a couple of years and we do need the public to help us, to contribute because these water tanks are USD 400 each; they're robust and last about 15 years, so it's the best alternative that they've got, quite frankly.

'This is my baby and I really want to follow it very carefully and make sure that we're getting the tanks in on time.'

Styler's harrowing encounters with the Amazonian tribesfolk can be seen in new documentary Crude.

--IANS-WENN