Iqaluit (Apr 03/06) - Fighting global warming has scored Sheila Watt-Cloutier a visit to sunny California.

The environmental activist and chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference is being honoured by Global Green USA for her work in fighting global warming.

In April, she will join a long list of people who have won the Green Cross Millennium Award, for "exceptional designs and individual advancements in industry, building, organizations and public policy," according to the award's website.

Past winners of the Green Cross include Leonardo DiCaprio, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Suzuki and Kevin Bacon. The group's honourary chair is former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

One professional protester has vowed to make a scene at the awards ceremony. Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Society is opposing the award because Watt-Cloutier supports Inuit seal hunting.

One of the founders of Greenpeace, Watson may be best known for numerous cases of ramming fishing boats at sea, and has been referred to as an "eco-terrorist" by other environmental groups.