Wolfgang E. Burhenne

Wolfgang Ewald Burhenne (born April 27, 1924 in Hanover ; † January 6, 2017 in Oelinghoven ) was a German forester and a global nature and environmental conservationist.

Life

Burhenne was born as the son of Adolf Burhenne and his wife Klara, geb. Ditges, born. After attending elementary school and high school, he was drafted into the armed forces in 1941. He was a soldier until his third wounding in Russia, which was followed by a stay in a hospital. In 1942 he was arrested in the Dachau hospital and taken to the Dachau concentration camp in solitary confinement because he had supported concentration camp inmates and procured weapons for the underground. He remained a prisoner in Dachau and other camps for 37 months. On April 27, 1945 he fled to his parents' house in Upper Bavaria. He was then released by the US troops in Bad Reichenhall and served at the forestry office in Bischofswiesen.

Services

In 1945 he began studying forest science in Munich and worked as a freelance consultant until 1948. From 1948 until his resignation in 1949 he was a consultant at the Bavarian State Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forests. In the same year he became an employee of the Bayerischer Landwirtschaftsverlag and advised members and committees of the Bavarian State Parliament. In addition to his professional activity, he studied from 1950 to 1953 at the Munich School of Politics . In 1949 he was a co-founder of the German Wildlife Protection Association , of which he has been a member since then. In 2016, he handed over responsibility for this to the German Wildlife Foundation , under whose umbrella the work of the German Wildlife Protection Association continues. In 1952 he and other environmentalists founded the International Alpine Commission (CIPRA). In the same year he was involved in the preparatory work for the establishment of the Interparliamentary Working Group. Since 1953 he has acted as its managing director, since 1985 on a voluntary basis. On April 29, 1961, he was one of the signatories of the Morges Manifesto, the founding charter of the WWF . In 1968 he was commissioned by Elisabeth Haub to set up the Karl Schmitz Scholl Fund (KSSF). He was deputy chairman of the board of directors. In 1969 he co-founded the International Council of Environmental Law in New Delhi. He has been re-elected as one of the Executive Governors every two years since inception.

Burhenne was involved in the creation and negotiation of numerous international environmental agreements, such as the Washington Convention on Endangered Species (CITES) or the Bonn Convention (CMS). He was chairman of the International Council on Environmental Law.

honors and awards

• Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1973)
• Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1978)
• Honorary Doctorate from Barkatullah University , India (1983)
• Elizabeth Haub Prize for Environmental Law (1975)
• Great Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1987)
• Honorary Doctorate from Pace University New York (1987)
• Environmental Medal of the "Better World Society" New York (1990)
• Honorary membership of the IUCN (1990)
• United Nations Environment Prize (1991)
• Large Cross of Merit with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2004)
• Alpine Prize , for his life's work in the service of worldwide nature and environmental protection (2011)
• IUCN: Jefferson Coolidge Memorial Medal (2012)

literature

• Kiss, Alexandre & Burhenne-Guilmin, F. (Eds.): A Law for the Environment. Essays in honor of Wolfgang E. Burhenne. Gland, 1994. ISBN 2-8317-0203-8
• Lausche, Barbara: Weaving a Web of Environmental Law. Erich Schmidt publishing house. Berlin, 2008. ISBN 978-3-503-11045-2

Web links

• Inter-parliamentary working group
• Elizabeth Haub Foundations
• CIPRA-International

Individual evidence

1. ↑ wwf.de: A life for species protection , January 13, 2017.
2. ↑ Wolfgang Burhenne is 80: Archive link ( Memento of the original from December 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ WWF in the Sixties: http://wwf.panda.org/who_we_are/history/sixties/
4. ^ History of the KSSF: http://www.elizabeth-haub.com/cms/front_content.php?idcat=6
5. ↑ http://www.cic-wildlife.org/index.php?id=548
6. ↑ List of honorary members (PDF file)
7. ↑ http://www.unep.org/sasakawa/winners/wolfgang-guilmin.asp
8. ↑ http://www.cipra.org/de/CIPRA/cipra-deutschland/willkommen_cipra_d/pm-deutscher-alpenpreis-2011_11-11-28.pdf  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was created automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ High international award for Dr. Wolfgang Burhenne