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Prince William sung Shakira ’s praises in a new episode of BBC’s Newscast. The Colombian superstar is one of the members of the Duke of Cambridge’s Earthshot Prize Council, which also includes Queen Rania of Jordan, Cate Blanchett, Yao Ming, Sir David Attenborough, Daniel Alves da Silva, plus more individuals who are committed to championing positive action in the environmental space.
“Shakira was my number one person on the list,” William joked during the interview, before noting “they’re all equal.”
“We tried to get people who genuinely cared for the environment, but were also influences around the world and Shakira has been brilliant at highlighting the plight of the oceans,” the Duke added. “She cares deeply about the pollution and she spends a lot of time at the beach. She’s a big surfer and her family, she wants them to enjoy the beach and other families to enjoy the water.”
Shakira tweeted last year that she was “so humbled and happy to be a part of” the council. The “Hips Don’t Lie” singer was featured in the new discovery+ series The Earthshot Prize: Repairing Our Planet and also contributed to the Earthshot: How To Save Our Planet book.
“Our first job is to properly understand what exactly we are doing to harm it, from pollution to overfishing to plastics. It would be easy to get depressed about the state of the ocean, but it is not yet defeated. The ocean has enormous resilience. We see evidence of that even today,” she wrote in an extract published by The Sun . “Our hope lies with the brightest minds working on technological solutions, and in teaching our children so future generations will treat the world differently.”
“I feel that we are finally starting to pay our planet the attention it deserves. We now have the tools to communicate with each other instantaneously, and people are voicing their opinions and exchanging ideas. So I feel we have never been better positioned to turn the tide,” Shakira continued. “The magic of the ocean is that it can recover. We are in a critical decade, but it’s not too late.”
The Earthshot Prize Council will award The Earthshot Prize to five winners on Sunday at the inaugural awards ceremony in London. Prince William launched the prestigious prize last October. The Earthshot Prize was designed to incentivize change and help repair the planet over the next ten years.