St Andrews Environment Prize Awarded to South Rupununi Conservation Society

On Tuesday 17 March, the South Rupununi Conservation Society (SRCS) of Guyana was awarded the prestigious St Andrews Prize for the Environment, receiving $95,000 (approximately £71,795) for its ‘Transforming Environmental Education” project. 

The St Andrews Prize for the Environment, presented annually by the University of St Andrews, recognises innovative solutions to pressing environmental challenges across the world.

Alyssa Melville, Environmental Education Coordinator at SRCS, accepted the award on behalf of the conservation society. According to the University news publication of this event, upon receiving the award, Melville said, “A big thank you to the St Andrews Prize for the Environment team and judges for recognising the work of the South Rupununi Conservation Society.”

Melville continued, “This recognition affirms the importance of community-led initiatives and the real impact they can have.”

The South Rupununi Conservation Society has been implementing its environmental education project for the last seven years. This environmental education program is geared towards primary and secondary students. Melville described the aim of this project to be “educating the next generation so that they will be able to deal with emerging environmental challenges.” 

The University press specified that the SRCS project involves students participating in a two-year programme in which they “study their environment before going on to design and lead their own citizen science projects.” According to SRCS, the initiative has “reached more than 2,000 students across over twenty communities in Guyana’s Region Nine.”

Melville added, “For us, this is not just about winning an award, it’s an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for us to strengthen our environmental education program, support our communities, and create long term impacts.”

Shona Stewart, Prize Manager for the award, explained to The Saint how the prize selection process works.  

“Entries are first reviewed by a Screening Committee comprising University academic and professional staff.  This is chaired by Professor Anne Magurran of the School of Biology and also includes the Vice-Principal (Research, Collections and Innovation), Professor Tom Brown.”

Then, the “Screening Committee draws up a shortlist of entries for the judges’ consideration, and the judges select three finalists, who are then invited to come to St Andrews to present their work to the judges, Screening Committee, and staff and students and also answer questions on it.” said Stewart, adding, “The judges alone then choose the winner.” 

This year, the judging panel was chaired by Professor Sir Ian Boyd, Bishop of Wardlaw Professor in the St Andrews School of Biology, and the Master of the University’s United College, Professor Ineke De Moortel, alongside four external judges.

Professor Sir Ian Boyd commented, “We’ve heard from three really first-class, imaginative, innovative projects. One about the conversation of sloths, another one about how to package water better in Sub-Saharan Africa, and another one about how to educate indigenous peoples in a place where there is a lot of social and economic change.”

Boyd continued, “We selected the South Rupanuni Conservation Society project because it was a very imaginative project” in a place of rapid environmental and socio-economic upheaval. 

Photo Provided by The University of St Andrews