Victor Westhoff
Victor Westhoff (born November 12, 1916 in Situbondo , Java , † March 12, 2001 in Zeist ) was a Dutch botanist, poet and conservationist.
After the family returned to the Netherlands in 1920, he went to school in Laren and Hilversum and studied botany at the University of Utrecht . From 1943 to 1947 he was employed by the Dutch General Automobile Club in the landscape issues department (which resulted from his work in the Dutch Youth Association for Nature Studies (Nederlandsche Jeugdbond voor Natuurstudie, NJN)). In 1945 he gave a seminal speech to the NJN in which he advocated a compromise between nature conservation and limited management (instead of completely natural areas). Then he was an advisor to the Society for the Conservation of Natural Monuments, which he remained part-time until 1968. In 1947 he received his doctorate in Utrecht cum laude with August Adriaan Pulle (1878–1955) (title of the English dissertation: The vegetation of dunes and salt marshes on the Dutch Islands of Terschelling, Vlieland and Texel). He then worked as an assistant in the laboratory for plant systematics and geography at the Wageningen agricultural college . There he became the founder of the plant sociology (vegetation) of the Netherlands, that is, the description and classification of plant communities. He came into contact with the German botanist Reinhold Tüxen and was editor of the journal Vegetatio with him and Josias Braun-Blanquet .
In 1957 he became head of the newly founded Rijksinstituut voor Veldbiologischer Onderzoek ten behoeve van het Natuurbehoud (RIVON), the Reich Institute for field biological research for nature conservation purposes. In 1967 he became an associate professor and in 1968 a full professor of botany at Radboud University Nijmegen .
He was a pioneer in creating the scientific basis for nature reserves in the Netherlands since the late 1940s. He wrote a bestseller on wild plants in the Netherlands in the early 1970s.
He was a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences.
He had been married since 1942 and had two sons and three daughters. Westhoff also published volumes of poetry.
In 1991 he received the Reinhold Tüxen Prize .
Fonts
- with AJ Den Held: Plantengemeenschappen in Nederland 1969
- (with co-authors): Wilde Planten, 3 volumes, 1970, 1972, 1973
- with Den Held and others: De vegetatie van Nederland, 5 volumes, 1995 to 1999
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Westhoff, Victor |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Dutch botanist, poet and conservationist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 12, 1916 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Situbondo , Java |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 12, 2001 |
| Place of death | Zeist |