Michael Succow

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Michael Succow 1991 during an excursion in a moor in Brandenburg

Michael Succow (born April 21, 1941 in Lüdersdorf ) is a German biologist and agricultural scientist . Numerous scientific publications, he has to be particularly Moor - Ecologist profiled and internationally. Especially its ecological and hydrological Moor typing is now considered the standard work of Moor customer .

He has been the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award since 1997 in recognition of his services to the establishment of many nature conservation reserves in Eastern Germany, Eastern Europe and Asia. The Ostsee-Zeitung described him as a “traveling preacher for nature conservation” because of his continuous, passionate commitment . In 2015 he received the honorary award from the German Federal Environment Foundation for “lifelong commitment to nature conservation”.

Professional background

Succow in the NABU experience center Blumberger Mühle

From 1960 to 1965 Succow studied biology at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald , where he received his doctorate under Franz Fukarek . After that he was a scientific assistant at the Botanical Institute of this university for four years. After openly sympathizing with the reform processes of the Prague Spring , he had to give up his university career in 1969 under pressure from the GDR regime. Succow now worked as a soil geological site surveyor and later became the brigade leader of a so-called melioration combine for converting moors into agricultural land. After receiving his doctorate in 1970 on a moor vegetation topic, he worked for several months in Mongolia before becoming a long-term research assistant at the Soil Science Institute of the GDR Academy of Agricultural Sciences. 1987 Succow was appointed professor of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the GDR after he, in turn, with a bog known union issue habilitation had. His books Moore in der Landschaft (1986) and Landschaftsökologische Moorkunde (1988) were published both in the GDR and in the FRG and became standard works for biology and nature conservation.

After the only free election to the Volkskammer in March 1990, Succow became Deputy Minister for Nature, Environmental Protection and Water Management in the GDR and was responsible for resource protection and land use planning. On September 12, 1990, at Succow's instigation, the GDR Council of Ministers - at its last meeting before its dissolution - decided on the National Park Program , with which seven percent of the area of ​​the GDR was placed under strict nature protection as a national park or biosphere reserve .

After reunification and the dissolution of the GDR Environment Ministry, Michael Succow accepted a visiting professorship at the Technical University of Berlin at the Institute for Ecology in 1990/91 . After various advisory activities for the state of Brandenburg and on an international level - for example in Georgia with the initiation of seven national parks - he was appointed university professor for geobotany and landscape ecology and director of the Botanical Institute and Botanical Garden of the University of Greifswald as the successor to his doctoral supervisor Franz Fukarek . In the following years he built his own course in "Landscape Ecology and Nature Conservation".

In addition, Succow has been working in various countries in Eastern Europe as well as in Central and East Asia since 1990 in order to initiate large-scale nature conservation projects there: UNESCO World Heritage Areas in Kamchatka , the Lena Delta and Karelia , UNESCO biosphere reserves in Kyrgyzstan , Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and national parks in Mongolia, Georgia, Russia and Belarus . After founding the "Michael Succow Foundation for the Protection of Nature", which he built up with the prize money for the Alternative Nobel Prize, he primarily supports the Republic of Azerbaijan in the implementation of a national park program with up to eight reserves.

In addition to his professional work, Succow holds numerous honorary positions and scientific advisory functions in nature conservation organizations and institutions. For example in the board of trustees of the Foundation for Ecology and Democracy . From 1990 to 2003 he was Vice President of the Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU).

Publications

Independent works
  • Moors in the landscape: formation, household, living world, distribution, use and conservation of moors . Urania-Verlag 1986, ISBN 3-332-00021-7
  • Landscape ecology of peatlands . Fischer 1988, ISBN 3-334-00129-6
  • Nature conservation in Germany: Retrospectives - Insights - Outlooks. Ch. Links Verlag 2013, ISBN 978-3861536864
Contributions to
  • The Council of Experts on the Environment: Environmental Report 1996 . Metzler-Poeschel 1996, ISBN 3-8246-0545-7
  • The crisis as an opportunity - nature conservation in a new dimension . Findling 2001, ISBN 3-933603-10-2
  • with Lebrecht Jeschke and Hans Dieter Knapp: Nature conservation in Germany: retrospectives, insights, outlooks . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86153-686-4 .

Awards

literature

Web links

Commons : Michael Succow  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ An itinerant preacher for nature conservation. (PDF; 321 kB) In: Ostsee-Zeitung , Greifswald edition of April 21, 2011
  2. ↑ a b Setting the course in New York and Paris to secure the future of people on a stable planet . DBU. September 22, 2015. Accessed November 8, 2015.
  3. ↑ http://www.stiftung-oekologie-u-demokratie.de/w/kuratorium-2/
  4. ↑ Naturschutzbund Deutschland: Michael Succow receives DBU honorary award for his life's work , November 8, 2015
  5. ↑ bruno-h-schubert-stiftung.de: Laureate 1992 (accessed on May 7, 2015)
  6. ↑ press release. No. 56/2015. Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, March 25, 2015, accessed on November 20, 2015 .
  7. ↑ FREE PRESS from October 31, 2015, accessed on October 31, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Succow, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German biologist and politician (LDPD), MdV
DATE OF BIRTH April 21, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Ludersdorf