DEVON Wildlife Trust has recently received the Devon Environmental Business Initiative (DEBI) Environmental Education Award.

This award category is aimed at those who promote environmental education across Devon schools – including in Plymouth and Okehampton – colleges, universities, as well as community groups and the business sector.

The award was made at a ceremony held in the Met Office’s Exeter headquarters. Devon Wildlife Trust was chosen for its Wildlife Champions programme which has inspired hundreds of children to do good works for local wildlife and wild places.

Wildlife Champions work with local schools not only to get young people to appreciate the beauty and importance of the natural world, but also to take practical action to help it.

In the past this has meant the Trust has worked with pupils to improve their school grounds through planting wildflower meadows, creating ponds and planting trees. Each autumn Devon Wildlife Trust also organises a conference in which hundreds of Wildlife Champions gather to discuss their achievements and plans.

Paul Martin who runs the Wildlife Champions initiative said: ‘We were told that the award was given to us due to the scale of our project, the length of time that it has been running and the vision for empowering a generation of children to be able to change the world around them. We are immensely proud to have won this award! All the staff and students involved work so hard to make this project successful, so it is fantastic for them to receive this accolade.’