Gaia Foundation has won the Frank Salt Investments Award for the Environment for its work on specially protected areas of Ghajn Tuffieha and Ir-Ramla l-Hamra.

Gaia executive director Rudolf Ragonesi collected the prize, an award worth Lm1,000 presented by Environment Minister George Pullicino at Le Meridien Phoenicia, in Floriana.

In the opinion of the adjudication committee, made up of Maurice de Giorgio, Philip Farrugia Randon, Philip Zammit Briffa and Martin Scicluna, Gaia Foundation had done the most to promote and protect the Maltese environment in 2004.

Speaking to The Times, Dr Ragonesi said the project which Gaia Foundation had worked on consisted of the management of beaches and protection of clay slopes habitats and species living in sand dunes. The foundation had also planted about 12,000 trees and shrubs in Ghajn Tuffieha and more than 3,000 in Ramla Bay.

Dr Ragonesi said the Gaia Foundation had undertaken a project in 2001 to promote organic farming - a method that does away with the use of fertilisers and pesticides. He said the programme mainly focused on information spreading and awareness. In this respect, Gaia Foundation was targeting both producers and consumers.

BirdLife Malta, who placed second for their work on educating children on the need to protect the environment, was awarded a silver memento and a certificate.

A group of students from St Augustine's College in Pietà - Sander Grima, James Borg, Ambrose Galea, Gabriel Ellul and Neil Bugeja - placed third for their work on air pollution.

Mr Pullicino said the government was doing its share in promoting the environment since it was donating Lm25,000 to environmental NGOs yearly.

He said a share of the money that came in from fines would end up in the environment fund, which would in turn be used to finance NGOs and local councils which take initiatives to promote the environment.

Mr Pullicino thanked Frank Salt Investments for taking the initiative in giving the award. He said stakeholders in the construction industry should follow suit and put back into the environment a small share of what they had taken from it.