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

The S.C. General Assembly established the S.C. 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 Jan. 31, 2013.

Members of the Awards Committee represent the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium, S.C. Department of Natural Resources, S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, and the S.C. Forestry Commission.

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, S.C. 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, University 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, S.C. Department of Natural Resources

1993: Dana Beach, executive director, SC Coastal Conservation League

1992: Rudy Mancke, naturalist, S.C. Educational Television