LEWISTON – The Androscoggin Land Trust was honored for 20 years of conservation and stewardship on May 5 at the Harward Center for Community Partnerships’ third annual awards ceremony at the Muskie Archives at Bates College.

Laura Sewall, assistant director at the Harward Center, commended the trust for its “hardworking staff, board and volunteers, for its collaborative style and collaboration successes, and for recognizing that important balance between our human industry and economy, and the importance of setting aside lands for health, spirit and recreation.”

She said the Harward Center received many nominations for ALT, “all singing abundant praises for the work [they] do.”

Jonathan LaBonte, trust executive director, accepted the 2009 Bates-Morse Mountain Award for Environmental Lifetime Achievement on behalf of the trust.

“To accept this award, in a hall named for Sen. Muskie, is fitting, given his vision of a future for the Androscoggin River that brought back into balance the sustainability of the natural environment with the diverse communities that line its banks,” LaBonte said.

The 2009 Harward Center Staff Award for Community Volunteerism and Leadership went to Edouard Plourde, a a trust board of directors member and its treasurer, in recognition of his decades of involvement in community and nonprofit organizations in the Lewiston-Auburn area.

Go to www.androscogginlandtrust.org for more information.