Monday, July 27, 2009

Bonaire to Honor Dr. Sylvia Earle with Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award

Dr. Sylvia Earle, known as the ambassador to the world’s oceans, will add another accolade to her impressive array of honors when Bonaire’s first “Lifetime Achievement Award” is bestowed upon her. The award will be made during Celebrate Our Planet Week this summer, August 15-22, 2009, as a highlight week of the Bonaire Dive Into Summer festivities.

At a gala evening event at the Governor’s Residence on Wednesday, August 19, 2009, Dr. Earle will be honored and thanked for her lifetime of dedication to education and conservation of the world’s natural resources.  The island’s “Lifetime Achievement Award” is granted to “acknowledge exceptional efforts throughout one’s lifetime to preserve and protect nature, both above and below the water’s surface.”

Also while on Bonaire, Dr. Earle will lead a series of themed dives and activities and will participate in several on-island events designed to highlight Bonaire’s continued leadership in sustainable tourism.

From Dr. Earle’s early years, her parents fostered in her the respect of wild creatures and not to fear the unknown.  Throughout her teen and college years, Dr. Earle’s fascination with the natural world continued to grow, and it was in Florida where Dr. Earle first learned to scuba dive, as a tool to better assist her in the first-hand study of marine life. 

After earning her Master’s degree at Duke University, Dr. Earle joined a National Science Foundation expedition to the Indian Ocean for six weeks in 1964, which set the scene for the rest of her life.  Two years later, she received her Ph.D. from Duke University, and then Dr. Earle’s career led her to experience many “firsts”--a trip to one hundred feet below the waters of the Bahamas in a submersible, the leading of the first team of women aquanauts, and the making of an open-ocean JIM suit dive, setting a women’s depth record of 1250 feet (381m).  Dr. Earle also currently holds the women’s record for a solo dive in a deep submersible (3280 feet, 1000m).

From 1980 to 1984 she served on NACOA (the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere) and in the early 1990s, Dr. Earle served as Chief Scientist of NOAA (the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration). 

Today Dr. Earle is Explorer in Residence at the National Geographic Society. She has recently led the Google Ocean Advisory Council, which is a team of 30 marine scientists who provide content and scientific oversight for the “Ocean in Google Earth.” In her astonishing career, Dr. Earle has led over 400 expeditions, logging more than 7000 hours underwater, and she has received more than 100 national and international honors, including Time magazine’s first “Hero for the Planet” in 1998.  She is a Knight in the Netherlands’ Order of the Golden Ark.  Dr. Earl has authored more than 125 publications regarding marine science and technology.

Thanks go to Celebrate Our Planet Week’s host hotel, Captain Don’s Habitat, and to the host airline, Continental Airlines.  (Source:  TCB-NY)