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Lester Harvey takes Keep New Zealand Beautiful's Environmentalist of the Year Award for 2007

• Announcement of Chairman's Excellence Awards
• Backgrounder on Chairman's Excellence Awards
• Lester's achievements
• Lester's local newspaper praises his efforts
• High resolution image of the Environmentalist Award. (JPG - 620KB)

Keep New Zealand Beautiful and Fonterra have named Mosgiel's Lester Harvey as their Environmentalist of the Year.

Lester was chosen from nominations from each of the society's 50 programmes, which cover New Zealand. His efforts to beautify 10 kilometres of rail track at Mosgiel, just south of Dunedin, have turned a transport corridor into virtual parkland, the independent judge decided.

Keep New Zealand beautiful chief executive office, Barry Lucinsky, says Lester, well into his seventies, spent not hundreds but thousands of hours at his voluntary work.

"Lester shows that one person can make a difference to a suburb. All it takes is a desire to be unhappy about the way things are and the energy to get out and set it right," he says.

"Lester's work would have been so daunting at the begin but he's toiled away for years, not seeking public applause or money till he made what's a utility corridor look as good as a good gardener's quarter acre. Except his garden stretches for 10 kilometres! All because he thought someone should set to and fix an eyesore."

Mr. Lucinsky says the Environmentalist of the Year Award brought out inspiring stories about volunteers making a difference to their communities, from all Keep New Zealand Beautiful programmes. Each nominee receives the Chairman's Excellence Award while the Environmentalist of the Year is chosen from amongst the successful nominees.

"Global pollution's a big, scary story tackled at government levels. But there's a local angle too. We just start out like Lester, cleaning up the neighbourhood. . If we all did it, we'd be able to hang onto the clean, green country for generations to come.""

The Fonterra-sponsored award was presented at Keep New Zealand Beautiful's function at the Beehive on Friday, 29 February.