Chipping Norton beauty queen targets Miss Earth competition with leopard conservation message

Rheanna Cartier, 19, who has previously won the Miss Bare Face Top Model round at Miss England and positioned third at Miss London, has set her sights on being England’s representative this year at the international major beauty pageant.

The Miss Earth competition held in the Philippines is considered one of the world's premier pageantry shows and is based around entrants advocating for environmental awareness, conservation, and social responsibility.

Rheanna will face off against other participants from England on Saturday August 5, to be crowned the Miss Earth representative for the country before being invited to take part in the international competition.

Rheanna said: "It would mean a lot to be crowned the England Miss Earth because I really enjoy pageantry and I make a lot of friends through it, but also because I will have the opportunity to promote Amur leopard conservation, and that’s a really important campaign for me because there are only 90 left in the wild.

"I am currently raising money for Dartmoor Zoo at the moment because they are running a project to help save the leopards, and becoming Miss Earth England would give me a larger platform to help promote the message of conserving the leopards and hopefully make a difference.

"They will assess us onstage in the evening and black dress rounds and also in interviews, first with the director of the show and another onstage where the judges can ask any random question and we will need to answer it."

To win the competition, Rheanna will need to impress the judges with not only her looks, modelling ability, and public speaking but also her plans to help conserve the leopards if she is crowned the winner.

Alongside Rheanna’s pagaentry, she is also raising money for the conservation of the Amur leopards, which are one of the rarest species on earth, by running 90 kilometres for the remaining 90 wild leopards. For more information on Rheanna’s fundraiser, visit her JustGiving page here.