Herbert Sukopp (* 1930)

Herbert Sukopp was born on 6 November 1930 in Berlin. He entered the Leibniz-Gymnasium, and from 1945 attended the prestigious Berlinische Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster. 1949 he entered the Pädagogische Hochschule in Berlin, where he specialised in biology. He qualified as a teacher in 1953. While he worked as an assistant at the Pädagogische Hochschule he also studied botany, geology and sociology at the Free University of Berlin. He took work as a graduate student in 1957 at the University's Institut für Systematische Botanik und Pflanzengeographie and he earned his doctorate in 1958 with a dissertation on the marshes of Berlin.

He was an assistant at the Institut für angewandte Botanik, where he qualified as a lecturer in 1968 and as a professor in 1969. He and his colleagues then drew together three institutes to create the new Institut für Ökologie. In 1974 Sukopp took over as head of the newly-founded subject Ökosystemforschung und Vegetationskunde. He continued to supervise master's degree and doctoral students from the Free University, even after becoming professor emeritus in 1996.

Sukopp is regarded as father of urban ecology. The isolated situation of West Berlin focussed his attention on the interactive influences of humans and nature and on the extent and the consequences of human intervention on plants, animals, climate, soil and water. His investigations led in 1974 to the first ,red list' (list of endangered species) of ferns and flowering plants in West Germany and a ,red list' for Europe in 1977/78. His first mappings of urban biotopes became the scientific standard. He developed an investigative approach in the field of ecosystem research that has provided a basis for studies of environmental sensitivity and is reflected to some degree in the Berliner Umweltatlas. He expanded the concept of "Natürlichkeitsgrad" ('degree of naturalness', Jaakko Jalas, 1955) to apply to built-up areas.

Sukopp always interwove fundamental principles with real-life issues and he set great store by discussions between scientists, planners, politicians and local population. He was convinced that nature protection in cities must have the interests of people at heart, above all it must promote a good climate and clean air. Thus he helped either to prevent damaging human impact (such as the Oberhavel power station) or to reduce its effects (such as the motorway feeder road through Tegeler Forst forest). His survey of the vegetation on the banks of the river Havel led to a law for the protection of reeds and so to the reclaiming of the riverbanks for nature. Sukopp's friendly, conversational and objective approach and his well-considered and perseverant mode of putting his ideas across have had a major impact of the way people live and on the environment.

Starting in Berlin in 1974, he has been either an advisor or in a leading role, and always in a voluntary capacity, in various bodies devoted to nature protection, landscape preservation and environmental issues; he has also worked in similar bodies at the federal level and in the European Council, at the World Conservation Union and for UNESCO. The TH Munich has honoured his scientific achievements with an honorary doctorate. His combination of the political and the scientific in the interests of natural protection earned him the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1983, and in 1987 the order of merit of the federal state of Berlin, as well as other prizes and honorary memberships. Sukopp is also a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Städtebau und Landesplanung and he was inducted into the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences) in 1995.

Lit.: Dynamik und Konstanz. Festschrift für Herbert Sukopp, edited by Ingo Kowarik..., Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1995 (= Schriftenreihe für Vegetationskunde; Bd. 27).

[B .E.]