Nominees Sought for South Carolina Environmental Awareness Awards

The South Carolina Environmental Awareness Award acknowledges outstanding contributions made toward the protection, conservation, and improvement of South Carolina’s natural resources.

The South Carolina General Assembly established the SC Environmental Awareness Award, now in its 20th year, during the 1992 legislative session to recognize outstanding contributions made toward the protection, conservation and improvement of South Carolina’s natural resources. Each year the public is invited to submit nominations that are then reviewed by an awards committee, which considers excellence in innovation, leadership, and accomplishments that influence positive changes.

The deadline for nominations is January 31, 2013.

Nominee applications can be found here.

Awards Committee

Members represent the SC Sea Grant Consortium, SC Department of Natural Resources, SC Department of Health and Environmental Control, and the SC Forestry Commission.

Guidelines for the S.C. Environmental Awareness Award

The purpose of the S.C. Environmental Awareness Award is to promote awareness of the environment and acknowledge exemplary accomplishments in the protection, conservation, and improvement of our natural resources. Areas of accomplishment include, but are not limited to:

• Protection, conservation, or improvement of soil, water, or air;
• Protection or conservation of native plants, animals, or their habitats;
• Improvement of natural resource management;
• Benefits to wildlife (game or non-game); and
• Increased recreational or aesthetic values.

Eligible Recipients must:

• Be a South Carolina resident;
• Possess upstanding moral character;
• Exemplify extraordinary dedication to preserving and improving the environment and natural resources of South Carolina.

Nominations will be judged on the impact of accomplishments. For example:

• Degree of innovativeness, originality, or pioneering that enhance environmental protection and preservation;
• Degree that contributions promote leadership in preserving and protecting the environment and natural resources;
• Size, scope, and impact of accomplishments;
• Degree that efforts promote educational opportunities for the public;
• Degree that accomplishments influence positive changes affecting the environment at the local, state, or national level;
• Short- or long-term benefits to the environment.

Past Winners

2011 – Dr. Patricia J. DeCoursey, Professor of Biological Sciences at USC
2010 – Frank S. Holleman, III, President, Naturaland Trust
2009 – Dr. Fred Holland, Coastal Ecologist, Charleston
2008 – Benjamin Ziegler, Chairman, Pee Dee Land Trust
2007 – Dr. Richard Porcher, Jr., Professor Emeritus, The Citadel
2006 – Rick Huffman, Founder, South Carolina Native Plant Society
2004 – John L. Knott, Jr., President, Noisette Company, North Charleston
2003 – Burris Family, Owners, Cypress Bay Plantation Tree Farm, Beaufort
2002 – Dr. Jack Turner, Director, Watershed Ecology Center, Univ. of South Carolina
2001 – James D. Elliott, Jr., Founder, South Carolina Center for Birds of Prey
2000 – Dr. Dave Hargett, Conservationist, Greenville
1999 – Kenneth Strickland, Environmentalist, Florence
1998 – Yancey A. McLeod, Jr., Environmental Educator, Eastover
1997 – Brad Wyche, President, Friends of the Reedy River, Greenville
1996 – Beaufort County Clean Water Task Force
1995 – Dr. Whitfield Gibbons, Senior Research Ecologist, Savannah River Ecology Laboratory
1994 – Marion Burnside, Chairman, SC Department of Natural Resources
1993 – Dana Beach, Executive Director, SC Coastal Conservation League
1992 – Rudy Mancke, Naturalist, SC Educational Television