Oceana, the world’s largest international marine conservation advocacy group, held its annual SeaChange Summer Festival on Saturday.
The Laguna Beach party, hosted this year by Ted Danson, raised $1.5 million for campaigns to protect and restore oceans in California and around the world. “We’ve been doing this for 17 years and have raised over $20 million in this area alone,” Danson said THR.
“The audience there is so dedicated, supportive and generous that it’s one of our favorite events,” the actor said, adding that the organization “usually succeeds in getting Hollywood to come out for the fundraiser.”
This year’s event, which honored longtime supporter and SeaChange co-founder Valarie Van Cleave, included a speech by the organization’s new CEO, Jim Simon. Singer Lisa Loeb also performed a private concert for attendees. In addition to Danson, the party featured a host of celebrity guests, including Diane Lane, Oscar Nuñez, Dennis Haysbert, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Sam Trammell and others.
Throughout the event, Oceana highlighted more than 25 successes from the past year, including convincing Amazon to reduce the use of single-use plastics in North America, new habitat protections in several countries and actions in California to reduce the entanglement of whales and sea turtles in commercial fishing gear.
Danson, a board member of Oceana, remembers the organization’s many successes well. “Plastic is a huge problem everywhere, including Southern California,” he explained, mentioning that the organization has partnered with Amazon to reduce single-use plastic. “They will phase out the use of plastic pillows by the end of 2024,” he added.
“When it comes to plastics, we’re constantly working with partners to achieve these things,” Danson said. “We’re definitely leading the way,” he continued, adding that “many other organizations have been working with us on this.”
The actor stressed how harmful plastics are. “It’s a huge problem,” he said. “By the middle of the century, the amount of plastic is expected to triple.”
He also pointed out that it’s not just about recycling better. “That’s a great marketing slogan for the plastics industry, but it doesn’t work. It never has,” Danson said. “I think about eight percent of all the plastic produced has been recycled, and often that’s just downcycling. A bag then becomes a plastic lawn chair because it’s been recycled, but at some point that chair becomes a problem.”
Between his time with Oceana and Danson’s many other professional appearances, he worked on a Cheers Podcast with his former co-star Woody Harrelson. “I feel it’s a privilege to sit down with someone for an hour and a half and have a real, relaxed, deep conversation and learn how that person became that person.”
