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While there are several prestigious environmental prizes such as the Goldman Prize, until recently no high-profile awards specifically acknowledged the broad range of achievement in the ocean and coastal community. The Blue Frontier/ Peter Benchley Awards fill this gap, providing a way to celebrate outstanding achievements that lead to the protection of our coasts, oceans, and the communities that depend on them.
Award Categories include: Exploration and Science, Policy, Media, Youth Activist, and Hero of the Seas. Given Blue Frontier Campaign’s mission to “promote unity, provide tools to and raise awareness of the solution-oriented seaweed (marine grassroots) community,” the Hero of the Seas Award will continue to be used to raise the profile of a grassroots leader.
We feel these awards are an opportunity for leaders involved in different aspects and sectors of ocean work to meet and acknowledge each other and celebrate what we have accomplished and the wonders of our blue world.
The first awards were given at the 2004 Blue Vision Conference in Washington D.C. where Peter Benchley gave the keynote speech. After he passed away, his wife Wendy Benchley agreed to let Blue Frontier title the next awards, held at the Blue Vision Summit in 2009, in his honor. Wendy is a grassroots environmental activist and she and Peter worked together for most of their 43 years of marriage on ocean conservation issues. She is honored that Blue Frontier presented awards in Peter’s name and is pleased that this will continue in 2010.
Past winners have included: Ram Myers of Dalhousie University, Nancy Knowlton and Jeremy Jackson of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Dery Bennett of the American Littoral Society, Richard Charter of the Outer Continental Shelf Coalition, Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC), Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA), Mark Shelly and Sea Studios Foundation, The Naples Daily News of Florida, and young sea turtle champion Zander Strodes.
Each award to date has included a framed certificate and a wildlife statue by the Marine Artist Wyland. For the 2010 awards, Wyland has generously offered to design a special statue unique to the Blue Frontier / Peter Benchley Awards.
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