A few serious Hollywood A-listers are helping to honor Deepak Chopra and Arianna Huffington at Oceana’s 2009 Partners Awards Gala on November 20th.

The 2009 Oceana Partners Award Gala honors those individuals who have made outstanding contributions through their personal commitment to the cause of protecting and conserving the environment. We likey!

Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart will host the special evening with stars like Morgan Freeman, Jeff Goldblum, Trudie Styler, Sting, Robert Redford, Ron Howard, Ted Danson and Sam Waterson slated to attend.

The event will take place at the private residence of Keri Selig and Keith Addis in Los Angeles, CA. To find out more, visit PartnersAward.org!

Morgan Freeman and Glenn Close were honored this weekend at the SeaChange Summer Party hosted by Oceana, the largest international organization focused 100% on ocean conservation. Oceana’s various boards include actors Pierce Brosnan, Kelsey Grammer, Sam Waterston as well as co-founder Ted Danson.

Danson co-hosted the event which was held at the Villa di Sogni, a private residence in Laguna Beach.

Before the event, Valarie Whiting, Oceana Board Member and SeaChange Co-Chair, said, “We are thrilled that Ms. Close and Mr. Freeman will be this year’s honorees. We’re confident that the involvement of Ms. Close and Mr. Freeman will guarantee a second major SeaChange success, generating significant funding enabling Oceana to continue its crucial work toward restoring and protecting the world’s oceans.”

CTN News was there to cover the event. Above photo by CTN.

Here at Ecorazzi we chose to celebrate the holiday with Oceana as they teamed up with Nautica and Vanity Fair at the Hudson Terrace in NYC. 

Oceana is a nonprofit international advocacy organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the world’s oceans. In 2001, Oceana merged with the American Ocean’s Campaign (AOC), which was founded in 1987 by Ted Danson. 

The event was a hit and featured a slew of celebrity guests who all came out to show their support  for this important holiday. Without a doubt the highlight of the evening was when singing sensation Estelle took to the stage and sang her face off! Those are SOME chords!

We had a chance to chat with a few of the guests and find out why they are proud to support Oceana and the World Oceans Day. Check out the exclusive video below!

The film, which Danson narrates, reveals the impact of overfishing on our oceans. Check out his appearance on MSNBC below:

Ted Danson has written a new article for CNN on the endangered health of the world’s oceans — and what we might do to (just barely) save them. He writes,

“Today, Monday, June 8, we recognize the first U.N.-sanctioned World Oceans Day. The event comes after years of pressure from conservation groups and thousands of activists who clamored for everyone to know and understand what’s happening in our oceans.

I became an ocean activist in 1987. It was the fifth year of “Cheers” and my family moved into a neighborhood that was on the water, in Santa Monica, California. One day I took my daughters to the beach to go swimming, but it was “closed” and I couldn’t answer my daughter’s question why. That’s really how it started. That and “Cheers” was paying me a lot of money and I felt I had better be responsible with it. So, I started to get involved.

It turned out in our new neighborhood there was a fight to keep Occidental Petroleum from drilling 60 oil wells on Will Rogers State Beach in Los Angeles. They wanted to slant drill into the Santa Monica Bay. The fight was led by a man named Robert Sulnick and we became great friends and found a way to beat them.”

Click here to continue reading the rest of Danson’s article for CNN.

Ted Danson

Danson, as a co-founder and board member of the ocean conservation group Oceana, urged Congress to reinstate the ban. “The oil companies are making us a sucker’s offer, asking us to take on 100 percent of the risk of offshore drilling, for just a fraction of any benefits,” he said. “More oil spills mean less abundant oceans. More oil spills mean fewer wonderful, pristine beaches. More oil spills mean fewer jobs,” he added.

Though many have advocated offshore drilling as a means to reduce energy prices and reduce dependence on foreign oil, the risks truly do outweigh the benefits. A U.S. Energy Information Administration statement recently said “that any effect on oil and gas prices from increased offshore drilling would be insignificant, producing roughly 200,000 barrels in additional oil per day in 2030, which is 1 percent of current U.S. consumption.”

Philippe Cousteau, grandson of legendary ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau and a board member of Ocean Conservancy, also testified — and said if the moratorium is lifted, we should proceed with caution. “If there is to be new drilling, we must at the very least legislate to ensure the process of new drill siting and the conditions applied to exploration and production minimize their impacts,” Cousteau said.

Did Ted Danson just get himself kicked out of our PETA Prime race? Maybe! Just days after Ecorazzi asked YOU to decide who should be PETA Prime’s first vegetarian spokesperson, one of our contestants, Ted Danson, is causing some serious fish controversy.

Ted started Oceana — the largest international group focused solely on ocean conservation — 20 years ago to help save the oceans inhabitants. Recently Danson spoke out against the traditional British dish of fish and chips, claiming it’s causing the near extinction of an endangered species of shark. Danson revealed that the “fish” from said fish and chips could in fact be “spiny dogfish,” a rare species of shark that is on the World Conservation Union Critically Endangered List.

Even though Danson admits that, “in general we are over fishing all our fisheries around the world,” he has no interest in quitting HIS OWN fish habit. Ted said: “I love fish and I love fish and chips. I am not going to stop eating fish and chips. Not eating fish and chips is not going to have an impact necessarily. What is needed is to become an activist to try to get the policy changed on shark fishing.”

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be Bitter Bob over here, but shouldn’t the founder of the world’s largest ocean conservation group avoid oceanic products? I know that some fish-eaters call themselves vegetarian, but consuming the very thing you are working to save seems like a pretty backwards idea to me. What do you think Ecorazzi readers? Is Ted Danson an ocean hypocrite? Chime in and share your thoughts!

Who says animal rights is just for young people? With stars like Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire and Miley Cyrus all rocking the veggie lifestyle, it’s easy to think that the meat-free world is a young man’s game. But there’s a whole culture of AARP reading, wrinkle cream purchasing vegetarians who still remember what it was like when soy milk came in powder form.

To help give those meat-free pioneers more of a voice, PETA has created PETA Prime – a website dedicated to the more mature members of the vegetarian movement. It’s common knowledge that vegetarians live longer than a person on the Standard American Diet and so it’s even more important that us veggies have a place to call home even after we retire. (Let’s not forget that Donald Watson – the father of veganism – lived to the ripe old age of 95.)

The only question remaining is which 55+ vegetarian celebrity should be the spokesperson for PETA Prime? Should it be Steve Martin, Dustin Hoffman, Bob Barker, Ed Begley Jr. or Joanna Lumley? What about Ted Danson, Mary Tyler Moore, Paul McCartney or Phylicia Rashad. Of course there’s always Cicely Tyson, Loretta Swit and Danny Devito to consider.

Post a comment below and tell us who YOU would like to see on the front page of PETA Prime. We know the folks at PETA read Ecorazzi so you never know what your opinion just might inspire!

Oceana protects the world’s oceans and receives mondo celebrity support for their work. An impressive list of eco-stars were flown to the party in helicopters from L.A.! Crikey!

Celebrities who showed up were Ted Danson, Diane Lane, Diane Keaton, Jeff Goldblum, Beau Bridges, and Sam Waterson (also honored). Oceana paid $1,000 to purchase carbon credits to offset the party’s carbon emissions.

Global warming is hitting our oceans hard, and it seems the media often forgets to mention our troubled salty waters. I’m glad Oceana is out there working it and raising awareness.

via: ocregister.com

Below are a collection of some of their latest vids featuring such notables as Ted Danson and Oceana, hunky handyman Carter Oosterhouse, and Gossip Girls star Kelly Rutherford.