Minister for the Environment Dr John Cortes was at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew on Friday, to attend the launch of the tenth anniversary International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY) Exhibition and book, at the Nash Conservatory.

IGPOTY is the most acclaimed international botanical photography exhibition, attracting great interest from gardeners and plant lovers as well as photographers. This year's competition alone saw around 20,000 entries.

Dr Cortes was a regular visitor at Kew during his twenty years as Director of the Gibraltar Botanic Gardens.  He was asked to write the introduction to the special 10th anniversary publication and was invited to be present at the launch which was attended by all the winning photographers, including the overall winner Lee Acaster, senior representatives of Kew Gardens, IGPOTY, and the Royal Photographic Society.

In connection with the 200th anniversary last year of the Gibraltar Botanic Gardens at the Alameda, the exhibition will be brought over to Gibraltar later this year.