Issues important to Malibu residents such as saving the wetlands, protecting whales and dolphins, and working to provide Americans with pure, arsenic-free drinking water were rallying cries at a celebration at Sierra Club’s Angeles Chapter 90th Anniversary on April 19.
Actor Martin Sheen, who could not attend the event because of filming of the NBC television series “West Wing,” was to receive a Distinguished Environmentalist Award, which he instead gave to Malibu activist Valerie Sklarevsky of the EarthWays Foundation.
In a letter that Sheen sent as an apology for not attending the event, he said of Sklarevsky: “She is the only one more deserving of this award, so please accept it and keep it, in love and gratitude.”
Sheen, who plays the president of the United States on “West Wing,” is also a Malibu environmental activist.
In remarks preceding the awards, Angeles Chapter President Gordon LaBedz lamented the 95 percent loss of California’s coastal wetlands. Sierra Club President Carl Pope optimistically told how it is “not too late,” to save Southern California, and each officer lauded Sheen’s environmental efforts.
LaBedz praised Sheen for working to safeguard Marina del Rey’s Ballona Creek saying, “Martin stuck his neck out when Steven Spielberg wanted to develop it.”
Sklarevsky had joined Sheen, Cordelia Rorick and Malibu resident Mona Loo, and nearly 8,000 other protestors at the controversial U.S. Army School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga. in 1998, and has been a high-profile force in the movement to preserve Malibu wetlands.
Sheen’s activism, cited by the Sierra Club, also includes his participation last year among a group of protesters arrested for chaining themselves to the front gate at the Vandenburg Air Force Base protesting missile tests.
Other award recipients included Nell Newman, daughter of actor Paul Newman, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, who received the Distinguished Justice Award; and Mikhail Davis, of Earth Island Institute, who received the David Brower Organizational Award.
About 150 people, including Tom Hayden, Congressman Brad Sherman, and actors Jane Kaczmarek (“Malcom in the Middle”) and Rene Auberjonois (“Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”) attended the event.