Ali Sahabi stands on the bamboo-covered bridge at Dos Lagos. (Silvia Flores/The Press-Enterprise)

A tribal chairman from the Inland region will be the latest speaker to take part in an ongoing lecture series held at Dos Lagos in south Corona. Robert Martin, the tribal chairman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, will talk about "Transition from Blight to Might: Social Impact of an Evolving Society" in the free lecture this Wednesday night.

Martin's tribe near Banning is 1,000-members strong, and you probably recognize the tribe's tall hotel-casino-spa every time you drive through the San Gorgonio Pass. As chairman, Martin has worked with city, county, state and federal lawmakers on environmental, transportation, land and water issues.

And speaking of Dos Lagos, its developer Ali Sahabi was among 18 people, foundations and businesses statewide honored by Gov. Schwarzenegger last week for their commitment to integrate environmental values and conservation into their businesses and facilities.

“This honor recognizes our commitment to developing communities that are socially responsible, environmentally sensitive and economically viable,” Sahabi said in a statement. “It is humbling, as a corporation, to be rewarded for doing something so intrinsic to our values.”

And speaking of Sahabi, the subsidiary of his SE Corporation earlier this month became the first real estate developer to join the California Climate Action Registry. Temescal Canyon Properties 8, LLC, was the company that developed an old mining pit into the 543-acre, mixed-use community of Dos Lagos. The registry is made up of groups that voluntarily track, report and certify their emissions of greenhouse gases, which cause global warming.

Sahabi also established the nonprofit GIVE, or the Green Institute for Village Empowerment, in 2006 to build sustainable communities through education, research and initiatives. That brings us back to the beginning. That's the group that's sponsoring Wednesday's talk.

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