A Concert On Rainforest Way

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

April 15, 1999 / 2:57 PM EDT / CBS

It's been ten years since Sting and his wife Trudie Styler founded the Rainforest Foundation to help protect the Menkranoti Indian's homeland in the Brazilian Amazon.

Their mission has grown: now it's to protect the rights and environment of the people who live in the world's rainforests.

So has the annual concert at New York's Carnegie Hall, produced by Styler, which is part of that commitment. The concert, on April 17, is part of a Rainforest Awareness Week that features various fund- and awareness-raising activities including the lighting of the Empire State Building in green and the temporary renaming of the street outside Carnegie Hall as Rainforest Way.

Performers for this year's concert include regulars Sting, Elton John and James Taylor, as well as Tony Bennett, Billy Joel, Don Henley and Ricky Martin, plus some special surprise guests.

"This year's concert is called, 'We're Doing it His Way,' so you can probably guess whose way we are doing it, Frank Sinatra, and everybody is going to be singing Sinatra the whole evening," says Styler.

For Styler, putting the star-studded show together can be nerve racking. "I never really feel there's enough time to do it justice," she says, "but somehow with the magic of show business, I suppose, they all really do a tremendous job with it and we've had no complaints so far."

The Rainforest Foundation has raised more than $9 million through the efforts of Trudie, Sting and the annual concert. But the biggest challenge facing the foundation is keeping the issue in the public's consciousness.

Foundation Executive Director Laurie Parise says, "the rainforests being destroyed is the difference between living on this planet and not living on this planet. People need to care, and people who have children need to care. It is our future; it is our environment; it is our life."

A strong message, and one that's not lost on the performers who make the concert memorable.

For more information, see The Rainforest Foundation site, or write to:

Rainforest Foundation
270 Lafayette Street
Suite 1107
New York, N.Y. 10012