Actor Beau Bridges is spearheading a campaign to preserve and protect sacred Chumash Indian land in California.
The Fabulous Baker Boys star is on the board of The Wishtoyo Foundation, which fights for the rights of the existing tribesfolk and their cultural and environmental legacy.
Bridges tells BlogTalkRadio.com, "A large part of what we do is we have lawyers that take on the oil companies that are drilling and people who are polluting the rivers. We are trying to save the sacred sites of the Chumash, who are the first inhabitants of the Channel Islands and Santa Monica Mountains.
"We actually constructed a Chumash village very much like the old days in their aps, which is what they called the houses. The founder, Mati Waiya, is a Chumash medicine man and the first Native American coast keeper of the Ventura area. It (village) sits on a beautiful piece of property the government gave us in Malibu.
"We had an interesting event where we brought in practitioners of nature, what you would call shamans from all over the world, like the Amazon, Colombia and Hawaii. It was fascinating listening to these folks talk about how they see the relationship between man and the planet.
"The herbs that make up the important modern medicine to heal us is found only in the Amazon and those forests are being destroyed; just whacking it down as we sit here. Also the knowledge that these older medicine men have, where these things are and how to use them is being lost, so it's a forgotten lore that needs to be revitalised."