Leanne Marlow has built her reputation as a keen environmentalist through her dedication to green pursuits such as bird watching, growing her own vegetables and butterfly breeding.

But despite these personal endeavours, the 11-year-old knows it is just as important to keep the green pressure up on others around her - especially her own family.

"I don't let them buy any aerosol cans and we recycle everything that's recyclable and grow our own vegetables in the garden," she says with a steely tone in her voice.

"They don't like doing it but I'm like the enforcer."

Leanne, who started at Greenshaw High School, Sutton, this September, first distinguished herself as a passionate environmentalist while a pupil at Robin Hood Junior School.

During her time at the Thorncroft Road school, she began bird watching, worked on the school allotment and was the member of an ecology team responsible for butterfly breeding.

To do this, she sent off for a butterfly breeding pack and received caterpillars through the post which were then cared for until they became chrysalids and eventually butterflies.

Leanne was also responsible for contacting the Prince of Wales about Robin Hood's allotment club, which resulted in an invite for the entire club to visit him Higrove in May this year. Some of her other activities include developing the school's mini orchard, pond cleaning over the holidays and last Autumn she became the year 6 leader for the Eco Action team as part of the ENCAMS school's Eco Award programme.

In return for her efforts, the school nominated her in the Sutton Young Environmen-talist category of the Green Guardian Awards - a category she later won.

She is not resting on her laurels however, and plans to keep making the world a greener place - both on her own and by influencing others.

"It's really important and it just makes you feel good," Leanne, of Florian Avenue, said. "I definitely want to keep doing it. I enjoy it and it sort of feels like some thing I have to do. It's part of me."

Proud mum Nikki added: "If she gets interested in something she'll put everything into it. She's always telling us to recycle. She's very into it and she's very strict with us about it all.

"The other day we went to Tesco and she would not let me get any carrier bags."