Italian award for horticulturist

Peter Calamatta, a leading gardening consultant, has been honoured with the international lifetime achievement award known as the Torsanlorenzo Premio Prestigio per l'Ambiente - 2005.

The adjudicating panel gave Mr Calamatta the award "for having dedicated his life to the science of horticulture and landscaping, for having captured the need for green spaces in Malta and for having spread the culture of the Mediterranean garden through the media of radio and television as also the publication of books on Mediterranean gardening".

The presentation, which took place at the Torsanlorenzo nurseries outside Rome, was attended by dignitaries and world-renowned landscapers hailing from Austria, South Africa, England, France and the United Arab Emirates.

The chairman of the award concept, Mario Margheriti, said the Prestige Prize - Torsanlorenzo Nurseries for the Environment honours personalities engaged in university research, protagonists in the nursery and landscaping worlds as well as public administrators who, by their work, have contributed to the expansion of green areas within cities and their countries.