THERE were several young winners in the 1997 Ford Irish Conservation Awards which were announced recently. St Brigid's Girls' National School, Cabinteely, Co Dublin, shared the main award in the youth section with the Portumna Environmental Education Project from Co Galway. The girls from St Brigid's submitted their nature garden for the awards - this is a living garden with vegetables, a cornfield, cereal crops, sunflowers, hedgerow, marsh garden, pond, woodland, butterfly garden and herb garden.

The Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland's project to establish an interactive museum and archive of Irish scouting in the Mount Melleray Scout Centre near Cappoquin, Co Waterford, was one of the projects singled out for special praise by the judges. The project, which was runner-up to the Dublin Civic Trust in the heritage category, is establishing an archive which will enable the traditions and memories of an organisation which has served the young people of Ireland for 70 years to be preserved as a living heritage for future generations.

The overall winner was the Irish Genetic Resources Conservation Trust, which took the main award - and a cheque for £5,000 - for its work in establishing a seed bank for threatened native Irish flora. The gene bank was set up in collaboration with TCD, the National Botanic Gardens and the Wildlife Service in response to threat facing 159 species of plants on this island. To date 52 of the endangered species have been stored.

Eddie Nolan, Ford's chairman and managing director, says it's heartening to see the awards going from strength to strength. "Not a lot of people appreciate the fact that Henry Ford himself was a keen environmentalist," he says. "He would have taken delight, as we do, in the bumper number of entries which this year's awards has attracted."