On May 16th community members, friends, and family of Andrea Mead Lawrence gathered at Mammoth Mountain’s Parallax Restaurant to celebrate the annual presentation of the Andrea Lawrence Award celebrating passionate engagement with community and the land. This year the award was given to Ryan Carle, Science Director for Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge, in recognition of his dedication to phalarope research and conservation in the Mono Basin and throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Andrea was a visionary environmental leader, an Olympic double gold medalist, and a mother of five, who tirelessly pursued a principled vision of how ecological integrity, economy, and community can thrive in a way that preserves the vitality of each and enhances the whole. The Andrea Lawrence Award honors those who carry on her legacy of environmental conservation.
Ryan is a true Mono Basin local, born and raised in Lee Vining. Though he hails from our tiny town next to Mono Lake, his work to study and protect Wilson’s Phalaropes has taken him to saline lakes throughout the Western Hemisphere. Ryan’s collaborative spirit has rallied people together across cultures and disciplines to further the research, understanding, and preservation of these small saline-lake-reliant birds. It is because of his ability to collaborate and inspire on an international scale that Ryan was chosen to receive the 2024 award.
Proceeds from the event support the Andrea Lawrence Fund to encourage collaboration and to inspire youth to become environmental leaders, and this year a portion of these funds are helping to support Experience Ambientalia, a new foreign exchange program connecting youth from the saline lake communities near Mono Lake and Laguna Mar Chiquita in Argentina. A portion of the funds are also going to support the Mono Basin Outdoor Education Center as well.
The 13th Annual Andrea Lawrence Award Dinner would not have been possible without the generous support of the Lawrence family and Mammoth Mountain Ski Area. Thank you also to our guests, emcee Geoff McQuilkin, speakers Ryan Garrett and Janet & Dave Carle, and to this year’s award recipient, Ryan Carle, for his inspiring and ongoing work.
Top photo by Andrew Youssef.