The Mariolopoulos-Kanaginis Foundation for the Environmental Sciences in collaboration with the Ministry of Education announced awards to high school students from the Prefecture of the historic Nafpactos which is located in the mainland of South-Western Greece where the heroic family of Botsaris greatly contributed to the liberation of Greece in the early 19th century.

The competition was dedicated in the memory of the last member of that family, the late Ambassador Notis Botsaris member of the Board of Directors of the Mariolopoulos-Kanaginis Foundation.

On the 20th of June 2009 in a special ceremony hosted at the cultural center of the University of Athens "Costis Palamas" the awards were presented to the winning students by the President and the members of the Board of Directors of the Foundation.

The competition was the presentation from the students of a dissertation with the subject "Environmental Problems of the Prefecture of Nafpactos". The first Prize (2.000 Euro for the awarded student and 3.000 Euro for the environmental education of the school students) obtained the student of the 2nd Lyceum of Nafpaktos Evangellos Lalopoulos for a documentary film under the title "Waste Management". The film can be found compressed here. The 2nd Prize (1.500 Euro for the awarded students and 2.000 Euro for the environmental education of the school students) obtained the students of the Techincal Lyceum of Nafpaktos Papandreou Rafael-George and Pelekis Michael for their dissertation under the title "The SOS of the Nafpaktos Bay". The third Prize (1.000 Euro for the awarded students and 1.000 Euro for the environmental education of the school students) was presented to the student of the 1st Lyceum of Nafpaktos, Maria Dimara for her dissertation under the title "The Garbage's Place of Nafpaktos".