Loki Schmidt Foundation

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The Hamburg Nature Conservation Foundation and Foundation for the Protection of Endangered Plants , Loki Schmidt Foundation for short , also Foundation Nature and Plants, is a foundation under civil law with the aim of promoting the protection of nature and landscape as well as environmental education.

The foundation, based in Hamburg, is particularly focused on the practice-oriented protection and maintenance of endangered biotopes and is primarily operational with its own projects, such as the foundation areas acquired for this purpose. The foundation became known across Germany primarily through its former board member Loki Schmidt , the wife of the former Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt , who had also earned recognition as a botanist and nature conservationist.

Memorial stone of the Loki Schmidt Foundation for Otto Schindler on Wittmoor

The foundation emerged from the merger of two previously existing foundations, the "Foundation for the Protection of Endangered Plants" established by Loki Schmidt in 1979, the forerunner of the "Board of Trustees for the Protection of Endangered Plants", which it initiated in 1976, and the "Foundation for the Protection of Endangered Plants", founded in 1985/86. Hamburg Nature Conservation Foundation ", which was created with the decisive participation of the then President of the Hamburg environmental authority Senator Wolfgang Curilla (today Chairman of the Board of Trustees). The finances are controlled by the Board of Trustees, which the Stiftung Warentest assessed as positive in its study of donation organizations from November 2014.

The foundation sees its tasks u. a. by means of targeted public relations work to draw attention to the endangerment of biotopes and the plants they contain, and for this purpose also leases or buys individual land areas. The oldest such foundation project was the purchase of land in the Oleftal near Hollerath to protect the wild daffodils there , which was followed by further foundation land in various regions of Germany.

The foundation also operates the "Schafstall" nature conservation information center in the Fischbeker Heide and the nature conservation information center in the Boberger Niederung in two Hamburg nature reserves .

The flower of the year 2011:
bog lilies or leg breakers (here stock of blooming and fully bloomed specimens)

On the recommendation of the foundation, the silver plant or Loki Schmidt silver plant (a stylized silver plant by the artist Helmut Koniarsky ) has been awarded to people or institutions as a symbol for special achievements in nature and environmental protection. Honoring those with this award who have done their best to protect endangered plants goes back to the idea of ​​Loki Schmidt (who also awarded the award) and the Hamburg entrepreneur Kurt A. Körber .

The foundation also selects the flower of the year . The first of since the election lung gentian the flower of 1980 annually presented by the Foundation and thus gerückten in the public focus flowers are part of an awareness campaign informing about the ecological value of wild flowers and their habitats and to better protection of the selected species should contribute.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Stiftung Warentest: Donation organizations of celebrities: With heart and mind , test.de accessed online on October 28, 2014