Award for IoS's Geoffrey Lean herey

GEOFFREY LEAN (left) Environment Correspondent of the Independent on Sunday, has been given a prestigious international award to recognise his outstanding contribution to environmental journalism.

Last week, he was presented with the first Foundation prize for lifetime achievement, to mark the start of the Reuters-IUCN Media Awards designed "to promote excellence in environmental reporting worldwide".

Queen Noor of Jordan, who presented the award during a ceremony at Fontainebleu Castle, France, praised Mr Lean's "longstanding contribution to the highest standards of environmental reporting". President Chirac of France, the Presidents of Switzerland, Mali and Burkina Faso, and environment ministers from several nations were also at the ceremony.

The new awards scheme - a joint venture by Reuters and the IUCN (World Conservation Union), the world's leading international scientific body on the environment - is the first global programme of its kind. Unusually, it will focus on "the coverage of environmental issues in the context of mainstream social, political, and economic affairs."

Geoffrey Lean has won many national and international awards for his work. The IoS is the current Environment Newspaper of the Year in the British Environment and Media Awards.