Photo: Copyright © 2008 Oceana

Longtime ocean advocate Ted Danson is pressing Canada to take a more active role in efforts to reduce fisheries subsidies.

By Shermakaye Bass

Celebrities trade on their celebrity and always have – sometimes in not so earth-friendly ways. But among the nobler echelons of Hollywood, Manhattan and London, renown is fuel for green power. Instead of selling handbags made of rare reptilian skins, some of The Biz’s top stars try to protect these rare species, using their reputations, checkbooks and Rolodexes to aid our ailing planet.

Atop the green mountain are people like Robert Redford, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ed Begley – well-known spokesmen for the environment. But how many of us plebes realized that Pierce Brosnan is one of celebrity’s most committed eco-activists, supporting at least a dozen charities, or that Ted Danson is a key player and board member of the marine juggernaut Oceana.org.

There are many more, actually – dozens of celebrities who’ve thrown their green ideas into the ring, not just to green-wash or prop their careers, but to do the right thing, it seems. Ever wonder exactly what these famous stewards are committed to and why?

Here’s a sketchbook of five who are putting their money and hearts into making strides for Planet Earth:

• ROBERT REDFORD

No one can discuss the “greening of Hollywood” without uttering the names Redford or Sundance, which encompasses Redford’s Sundance Preserve, the nonprofit North Fork Preservation Alliance of Utah, as well as the Redford Center and Sundance Nature Center.

Photo: Sundance Institute

Robert Redford has fought environmental injustice for 40 years.

The man himself, who has fought environmental injustice for at least 40 years, prefers simply to be called “Bob,” as he told media at a recent press conference for The Unforeseen, the environmental documentary co-produced by Redford and filmmaker Terrence Malick, directed by Laura Dunn. The 72-year-old is as no-nonsense friendly in real time as he appears in TV interviews and magazine features – courteous, but he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, especially during Q&A’s, and that’s refreshing to witness. But he’s also quite kind and plain-spoken. When asked about his love for nature at the recent “Unforeseen” screening, he explained matter-of-factly that he grew up on the coast of California, in the mountains Colorado and swimming the pristine springs of Central Texas – as if mere exposure to such beauty demanded his stewardship. Apparently it did.

The sun-weathered film star has been a proponent of solar energy since the 1970’s and has supported its advancement through film and activism (note, Redford’s 1979 “The Solar Film”; also, that his homes are predominantly solar and wind powered, as are most of the Sundance Group’s facilities).

The actor has been a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) for the past 30-odd years; is on the advisory board of the Land Trust of Napa Valley (since 2004); and serves on the board of the University of Wisconsin’s Gaylord A. Nelson Environmental Endowment at the Institute for Environmental Studies.

Redford’s past board memberships include those of the Environmental Defense Fund, the Environmental Policy Center in San Francisco, the Solar Lobby, the Yosemite Institute, among others.
But his real baby – the nexus from which all things eco/Redford spring – is his Sundance Institute, which is headquartered on the filmmaker’s 5,000-acre Sundance Preserve in Utah. He founded the Preserve in 2006, expanding the 860-acre Redford Family Wildlife and Nature Preserve he’d started in the mid 1990’s. Today’s Utah haven “engages in innovative and sustainable environmental practices, to both ensure the environmental health of Sundance’s North Fork Canyon and serve as a model for other communities,” Redford and other founders have said.

It is a demonstration project for “land management, wildlife and habitat restoration, watershed protection, mitigation of noxious weeds and active fire ecology practices,” according to the group.

Other eco-friendly practices in action at the Preserve and the nearby Sundance Resort near Park City, Utah: a wind energy exchange, recycling programs, an in-house recycled glassworks, organic products and alternative transportation using buses and hybrid vehicles.

With all of the Sundance offshoots (including Sundance Channel’s “THE GREEN” – now in its second season), Redford tries to synthesize the creative, spiritual and natural realms, all of which he feels are fully interwoven - and which he says Sundance, the broad concept, is really about.

“I believe that land is sacred, and that we should conserve it and pass it on to future generations. This has always been my philosophy for Sundance,” he states on his website.

The shaggy septuagenarian became environmentally active in the late 1960s and ’70’s, lobbying for 1974-75’s “Clean Air Act” and the “Energy Conservation and Production Act ” (1974-76). He has received numerous environmental awards, including the 1989 Audubon Medal Award, 1993 Earth Day International Award, 1994 Nature Conservancy Award, the NRDC’s 2004 “Force for Nature Lifetime Achievement Award,” as well as a Kennedy Center Award in 2005 for his “distinguished achievement in the performing arts and in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to the life of our country.”

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