The skylight of the Ministry of the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs was the setting where the presentation of the Biodiversity Foundation Awards for leadership, innovation and environmental communication was held on 15 October 2009 to the winners of this first edition.

The skylight of the Ministry of the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs was the setting where the presentation of the Biodiversity Foundation Awards for leadership, innovation and environmental communication was held on 15 October 2009 to the winners of this first edition. Minister Elena Espinosa highlighted the importance of these awards. The president of the Biodiversity Foundation, Josep Puxeu, also participated in the ceremony.

The skylight of the Ministry of the Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs was the setting where the presentation of the Biodiversity Foundation Awards for leadership, innovation and environmental communication was held yesterday to the winners of this first edition. Minister Elena Espinosa highlighted the importance of these awards. The president of the Biodiversity Foundation, Josep Puxeu, also participated in the ceremony.

The awards, endowed with a total amount of 100,000 euros, have proposed, as a mission, to promote knowledge of nature and the rural environment, as well as to collect and disseminate those actions that generate synergies between the sustainable use of natural resources, the generation of employment and the improvement of the quality of life.

With the Leadership and Innovation category, the Biodiversity Foundation aims to give visibility to these new protagonists of the environment, people who strive to imprint a new dynamism on society, generating wealth and employment, launching activities that take advantage of the ecological values of the territory and respect the natural, cultural and ethnographic heritage.

Thus, in this modality, projects that represent a decisive contribution to innovation applied to the sustainable management of natural resources have been awarded. Specifically, the work of the entrepreneurs Clemente and Fermín Fernández Saa has been highlighted, for their project to collect and process seaweed for human consumption in Galicia, called Algamar, and which these Galician brothers have been carrying out since 1996. The jury emphasized its contribution to the diversification of sustainable economic activities linked to the sea.

Meanwhile, in ‘Innovation in Action’, the Riet Vell project – which was initiated in 2001 by SEO/Birdlife – was particularly valued because it shows that it is possible to make nature conservation compatible with rice production in the Ebro Delta area.

On World Rural Women’s Day, María Alfonso Hernández’s work for sustainable vineyards and healthy living was recognized. A project that already had numerous institutional support for the quality of organic wine that is produced from native grape varieties, in the province of Zamora.

Within the Communicators in Action category, in the ‘Photography’ section, within the Communication and Creation category, Cristina Molino’s Paint the Future was awarded. It is an image that points to human intervention in the ecosystem, while sounding the alarm about deforestation problems.

Among the applicants for ‘Literary Creation’, the winner was María Cereijo, with The Art of Defeat, a story that rescues the epistolary format with a fresh, funny narrative with great force in the message of nature conservation.

The award-winning journalists were Sofía Menéndez, in ‘Reports in the written press and online media’, and Abel Campos, in ‘Radio or television reports’. Sofía Menéndez is the author of the article Environmental Prosecutors, published in the Tierra supplement of El País, of which the jury highlighted the originality and informative rigor. For his part, Abel Campos signs the piece Por la piel del mink, broadcast on the Medi ambient program of Televisió Valenciana, which won the award thanks to the “comprehensive treatment of the problem treated and for its wealth of information, in relation to the threat of invasive species”.

Finally, Climate Change, by Enrique García and Rubén Salazar, was awarded the award for best ‘Documentary and short film’.

For more information about the awards and the winning works click here.