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Green Cross International Founding President Mikhail Gorbachev received a special prize for his environmental protection work at the 2010 German Environmental Awards, held Sunday 31 October in Bremen, Germany.

German President Christian Wulff presented Gorbachev with the special prize, marking only the 3rd time in the 18-year history of the Awards that a special honor was given out.

"Today you work with an admirable passion for a global ecological perestroika, for a move to a greater conservation of resources and more energy efficiency and for a way of living in harmony with nature rather than against it," said President Wulff.

In his acceptance speech, Gorbachev stressed that politics did not function without ecology, saying that the topic of ecology was at the "foremost front" of all the many problems that existed.

He went on to say that given the fact that, it is time to help the over 2 billion people without access to basic sanitation and put the topic of water on the top of the list.

He added, however, that the legacy of the Cold War, which had left whole regions contaminated, still needed to be dealt with.

Given out by the German Federal Environmental Foundation (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt), this year the main German Environmental Award was split among 3 individuals. Dr. Winfried Barkhausen and Edwin Büchter received the award for their mobile laser technique, an environmentally friendly cleaning technique that uses lasers instead of chemicals. Dr. Rainer Griesshammer, co-managing director of the Institute for Applied Ecology, was also honored for improving awareness of environmental sustainability.

For more information on the award, please visit the German Federal Environmental Foundation's website or visit the Green Cross International website.