Thursday, June 30, 2011

Carl Roessler to Receive Bonaire’s Lifetime Achievement Award

A panel of distinguished media chose Carl Roessler to become the third North American to win Bonaire’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. He will travel to Bonaire during the island’s Bonaire Lifetime Achievement Award Week, from August 20-27, 2011, a highlight week of the Bonaire Dive Into Summer Program. 

During his stay in Bonaire, Mr. Roessler will lead various seminars available to visitors and residents on oceanography and photography and will share his knowledge and experience through a variety of activities. He will be accompanied by his family and will be hosted by Captain Don’s Habitat Bonaire.

Mr. Roessler is an internationally recognized and acclaimed pioneer of the dive-travel industry. He has had a long standing commitment to protect and promote Bonaire. He opened numerous international dive locations to western dive tourists. His services to dive tourism, underwater photography, and his ethical standards of developing environmentally sensitive diving, have been recognized by induction into The International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame, and the NOGI Award from the Academy of Underwater Arts & Sciences.

With his long time friend Captain Don Stewart, Mr. Roessler was one of the earliest voices promoting sustainable diving on Bonaire. His history with Bonaire dates back to early 1969 when Mr. Roessler brought regularly scheduled group of divers, who were oriented to photography, on diving excursions to Bonaire. During those early years, he and Captain Don Stewart actively encouraged the Bonaire government to institute sustainable tourism practices. To ensure that Bonaire’s marine life remained both healthy and accessible to divers, Mr. Roessler was active in trying to get areas which had particularly good fish populations set aside for diving rather than a hunting area for fisherman.

In addition to orchestrating early dive tourism and environmentalism in Bonaire, Mr. Roessler actively promoted the beauty of Bonaire’s reefs through a variety of photo articles in Skin Diver Magazine, and brought top dive manufacturing companies to Bonaire, to make a promotional film on the wreck of the Windjammer. During his time in Bonaire, he’s logged over 100 dives on the wreck.

Mr. Roessler is now retired from the diving industry and volunteers his time to the Historical Diving Society, The International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame and The Journal of Diving History.

The Bonaire Lifetime Achievement Award honors long serving, high performance professionals whose careers have truly made a difference. It is for achievement over a period of several years rather than a single contribution and it is awarded for achievement that distinguishes the individual’s work and provides a legacy for future generations. Past recipients of the award include Dr. Sylvia Earle and Dr. Eugenie Clark. (Source: TCB-NY)