Save the Sound

Save the Sound

2024 Cynthia Pratt Laughlin Medal

For its work to protect natural resources surrounding the Long Island Sound so that people and wildlife can enjoy a healthy and clean environment for generations to come.

For 50 years, Save the Sound has been committed to protecting and improving the land, air, and water in Connecticut, Southern New York, and Long Island Sound. Through legal, engineering, and scientific means, it works to protect the environment so that people and wildlife can enjoy a healthy and clean environment for generations to come.

Organizationally, Save the Sound is committed to supporting effective stewardship and environmental action, and ensuring its internal operations as well as its programming support a diverse and equitable world.

The breadth and depth of its toolkit sets Save the Sound apart from other regional nonprofits. It successfully uses a combination of legislative advocacy, legal action, engineering, and scientific environmental monitoring as well as hands-on volunteer and educational efforts to protect this important region. It does not work alone. It takes a collaborative approach working alongside other environmental and volunteer organizations to restore and protect the area’s rivers, shorelines, wetlands, forests, air, and water.

In this way Save the Sound demonstrates the power of association and exemplifies the GCA’s purpose to “restore, improve, and protect the quality of the environment through educational programs and action in the fields of conservation and civic improvement.” 

The Cynthia Pratt Laughlin Medal is awarded for outstanding achievement in environmental protection and the maintenance of the quality of life.

Designed by sculptor Charles Parks, the medal was endowed in 1979 by Mrs. William K. Laughlin of the Southampton Garden Club, New York. Previous winners include former Nature Conservancy President Patrick Noonan (1984), the Outdoor Circle of Hawaii (1985), writer/philosopher/farmer Wendell Berry (2008), and the United State Green Building Council (2009).

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