BUND co-founder Hubert Weinzierl is dead

The co -founder of the Federation of the Environment and Nature Conservation in Germany (BUND), Hubert Weinzierl, is dead. The long -time pioneer in the field of environmental protection in Germany died in Wiesenfelden in the Bavarian Forest at the age of 89, the BUND Nature Conservation (BN) said in Bavaria with. The “Danube courier” had previously reported.

Weinzierl had shaped a controversial environmental organization from the BN in Bavaria as a trained forestry in the 1970s, which was vehemently activated in current ecological debates. He steered his skill as chairman for 33 years until 2002.

« Bavaria’s nature would be poorer without his work »

« Hubert Weinzierl, together with many volunteers, made an independent, strong and democratic association from the state-related, apolitical federal government, » said BN state chief Richard Mergner. « Bavaria’s nature would be poorer without his work and our livelihoods would be even more threatening. »

In addition, Weinzierl founded the federal government in 1975 with the journalist Horst Stern, the zoologen Bernhard Grzimek, the conductor Enoch zu Guttenberg and other nature lovers, and he also acted as its chairman for 15 years. Today, the federal government represents 670,000 members.

From 2000 to 2012, Weinzierl was also present for the German nature conservation ring, the umbrella organization of German nature conservation and environmental organizations. The BN praised Weinzierl as a « role model and integration figure » for « an entire generation of environmental protection activists ».

Numerous honors, later withdrawal from the public

For his pioneering role in environmental protection, he received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon and the Bavarian constitutional medal in gold. Among other things, he had promoted the foundation of the first German national park in the Bavarian Forest, later he lived there in Wiesenfelden Castle. He also successfully campaigned for the establishment of an Environment Ministry in Bavaria.

Weinzierl blindly blindly because of a nerve disease and largely withdrew from the public. In an interview before an 80th birthday in 2015, he never understood the German press agency as a party politician: « I was always convinced, and I am still a task today that environmental protection is a task that has to solve all of humanity. »