Newswise — Philanthropist David Rockefeller Jr. and author Peter Benchley will be honored by the New England Aquarium for their lifelong work and dedication to conservation causes. Each man will receive the David B. Stone Award for distinguished service to the environment and the community. This award is given biannually and is named after the Aquarium's visionary principal founder, Boston businessman David B. Stone. The awards will be presented at the Aquarium's annual gala, which will be held Friday, September 16.
Both Benchley and Rockefeller are world renowned for their work in their principal occupations, but both men have had a lifelong love of the ocean and have worked tirelessly to improve marine life around the globe. Below are descriptions of their conservation work.
David Rockefeller Jr.David Rockefeller Jr. is a man who loves the water. "I love being on the ocean," he says simply. "Time stops for me out there." So when he retired from his post as chairman of Rockefeller & Co., Inc. in the late 1990s, he decided to let that love guide him. "I was asking myself what I wanted to do with the next phase of my life," Rockefeller explains. "And the answer came back: 'Protect the oceans.'" He has been doing just that ever since.
Rockefeller's philanthropic work has been both extensive and focused. His devotion to the welfare of endangered ecosystems, whether on land or in water, comes through clearly when considering his past accomplishments. For three years he was an active member of the Pew Oceans Commission, which issued its final report detailing the health of U.S. marine waters in June of 2003. Following closely on the heels of his work with the Pew Commission, Rockefeller joined the Center for SeaChange, a group dedicated to making the suggestions of the Pew report a reality. Rockefeller is the immediate past vice chair of the National Park Foundation, in which capacity he reported directly to the Secretary of the Interior. He was also the national vice chair of the Alaska Conservation Foundation, and a founder of Alaska Fund for the Future, an organization dedicated to preserving the Alaskan natural environment and its native cultures.
An avid sailor with more than four decades of experience, Rockefeller has raced and cruised the waters from Labrador to Miami, from San Diego to Alaska, and from Scotland and Sweden to Turkey. In 2004, he co-founded the nonprofit organization Sailors for the Sea, with the goal of involving past, present and future recreational sailors in the fight for ocean conservation, reasoning that "Sailors need the ocean and the ocean needs sailors."
In his capacity as trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller has helped to channel generous contributions to dozens of worthy causes. Among these are several conservation organizations, including the National Environmental Trust, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Ocean Conservancy, the American Oceans Campaign, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, SeaWeb, Robert F. Kennedy's Waterkeeper Alliance, and many more.
In 2004, the Rockefeller family collectively received the World Ecology Award from the International Center for Tropical Ecology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Past recipients of the WEA include Jacques Cousteau, Dr. Richard Leakey and Dr. Jane Goodall, putting the family in rarefied company and making clear the importance and scale of the work they have done—and continue to do. David Rockefeller Jr. accepted the award on behalf of his family.
In his speech, he described how his own work in conservation has led him "to identify three themes of special importance for Americans to honor: taking the long view and resisting the emphasis on short-term gains; respect for all species, not just homo sapiens; and the importance of taking an ecosystem approach (not just a single species approach) to conservation. In other words, going beyond 'Now, me and easy.'" This three-pronged philosophy of conservation reflects a nearly matchless understanding of the subject, and it is the work that has grown out of precisely this understanding that has prompted the New England Aquarium to recognize David Rockefeller Jr. for his committed efforts.
Peter BenchleyWriter, filmmaker, radio and television personality, public speaker and conservationist—Peter Benchley has been all of these and more in his tireless campaign to protect the world's oceans, particularly sharks. An accomplished scuba diver who spent much of his childhood in the waters off Nantucket, Benchley's love for the world of water comes through in any medium.
Benchley's first novel, Jaws, was published in 1974, and the film version was released a year later. The massive great white shark of the title quickly became a cultural icon, an indelible image closely linked with sharks in people's minds even now, more than 30 years later.
Jaws was a novel of its time, getting the drama right and reporting on what was known about sharks in the mid-'70s. But science on sharks was in its infancy when Benchley wrote Jaws. "When I was writing Jaws," he explains, "most people still believed that the oceans were eternal and invincible, immune to anything man could possibly do to them. And very few people knew anything about sharks, especially great white sharks." As scientists learned more about shark behavior over the years, Benchley closely followed the evolving field, all the while becoming more concerned with shark and ocean preservation. "The more I came to know, the more sensitized I became to the problems in the seas," he says. "I quickly grew to regard sharks and the sea with great respect rather than fear, and that respect, in turn, led me to immerse myself in conservation issues." Benchley has done this with great success, becoming so knowledgeable and articulate on the subject that he has been described as "the voice of sharks."
The staggering success of Jaws brought Benchley into the public eye, but fiction was not his first career. After graduating from Harvard in 1961 with a B.A. in English, Benchley turned to journalism, working first as a reporter for The Washington Post and then as an editor for Newsweek. In 1967, he became a speechwriter for President Lyndon B. Johnson, and continued at the White House until 1969.
Benchley was a freelance magazine writer in 1971, working "for whoever would pay the bills," when he decided to pursue an idea for a novel he had been kicking around. "In 1964," he says, "I read about a fisherman who had caught a 4,550-pound great white shark off Long Island, and I thought to myself, 'What would happen if one of those came around and wouldn't go away?'" As for the novel's instant success, Benchley found it both "awesome" and unexpected, according to an article in People magazine.
While Jaws may have done much to define the public perception of sharks as "man-eaters," there is evidence throughout the novel of Benchley's deep respect for the oceans, as well as his budding conservationism. As Benchley has said, "The voice of Hooper the scientist (played by Richard Dreyfuss) was my voice urging the populace not to embark on some mad vendetta against an animal that was just doing what nature programmed it to do." Many ocean scientists trace their early interest in the ocean to Jaws and Hooper, the first marine scientist character in a major Hollywood movie.
Peter Benchley's resume as a conservationist is an impressive one, reflecting both a serious commitment to the issues and strong media savvy. He has been the spokesman for the Center for Sustainable Fisheries at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami, and has served on the boards of the National Council of Environmental Defense and the ocean conservation organization SeaWeb. For five years, he co-hosted the syndicated radio news segment The Ocean Report, which focused on news stories and issues relating to the world's oceans. His television credits include multiple guest appearances as a shark expert on ABC's legendary show The American Sportsman, and Peter Benchley's Amazon, a fictional series exploring human survival and ecological balance in the Amazon rainforest. Benchley's novel Girl from the Sea of Cortez describes overfishing and bycatch problems, and was ahead of its time in terms of ocean conservation.
Benchley has also collaborated with the New England Aquarium's Vice President of Global Marine Programs, Gregory Stone, to produce the award-winning World of Water series of short films, executive producing and narrating seven of the films personally. The World of Water films have been shown in more than 400 zoos and aquariums worldwide, and reach an estimated 33 million viewers each year.
An eloquent speaker and talented writer, Peter Benchley is a longtime friend of the conservation efforts of the New England Aquarium and a true champion of the ecosystems on which all life depends. His arguments in favor of protecting the underwater environments that cover the vast majority of the planet are prompted by his understanding that, above all, we must learn more about the world of water. For his many achievements, the New England Aquarium is proud to present Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws and the voice of sharks, with the David B. Stone award for distinguished service to the environment and the community.
About the New England AquariumLocated on the Boston waterfront, the New England Aquarium is one of the most prominent and popular aquariums in the United States. Its mission is "to present, promote, and protect the world of water." Beyond its exhibit halls, the Aquarium is also a leading ocean conservation organization with research scientists working around the globe and biologists rescuing stranded marine animals in New England.
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