There are places that make you happy. And people who live for the existence of such places. Without Michael Succow Germany would be poorer today for many lucky places.
Succow stands on the edge of the dunes-pine forest Lanken, who is allowed to "live himself," as he calls it, the gently rolling waves of Greifswalder Bodden in view, a late summer breeze in white hair, surrounded by about 20 students. They listen to what he has to say about the white-tailed eagle and herring breeding waters, about the change in vegetation over the past 300 years. Almost reverentially, Succow says, "Every tree here is an individual, every tree has its own unfolding, so, a forest that has an uncanny beauty ..."
He does not always finish his sentences. Succow is a world-renowned bog expert, one of the most important German environmentalists, emeritus professor of geobotany and landscape ecology. He jumps from topic to topic, everything is connected with everything. Sometimes a bird is cooing or chirping in between. "The woodpigeon!" or "The great great spotted woodpecker!" Succow says in the middle of the sentence.
When Michael Succow realizes how much it gushes out of him, he pushes a "so." one. Like a stopper: "Well, I can not talk too much." And then he usually continues to tell.
Outlaw in the Ministry of the Environment
However, if time is really short, Succow knows how to use it. As at the turn of 1989/90. The last decision at the last meeting of the last GDR government was: 4882 square kilometers are under protection - about 4.5 percent of the national territory. Five national parks, six biosphere reserves, three nature parks.
The "DDR National Park Program" was a highly unlikely coup. "A work of the century, created in less than a year," says Olaf Tschimpke from the German Nature Conservation Union. The then Federal Environment Minister Klaus Töpfer called it the "silverware of German unity".
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Michael Succow: "There are sometimes miracles nobody sees coming"The biologist Michael Succow, 78, is the father of the national park program. Because of his criticism of the GDR system, he had built a university career. Then, when the state imploded, he made a blitz career: At the end of November '89 Succow was invited to a round of talks, broadcast on GDR television - live, uncensored. He spoke openly about environmental damage that did not exist officially.
Shortly thereafter, Environment Minister Hans Reichelt asked him to become his deputy. "I believed in the system, was abused," Reichelt told him. You are credible, you have to do it better, you have every freedom. "
So was Succow, the Outlaw, briefly Vice Minister of the Environment, when the GDR was almost at the end. He appointed his companions Hans Dieter Knapp and Lebrecht Jeschke, also outlawed by the system, chief executives for the planned national parks and the "Green Belt", which was to become the death strip along the inner German border.
"All at once was very much possible"
For the National Park program initially a timetable of two to three years was estimated. When, in August 1990, it was surprisingly announced that reunification would be completed on October 3, one would have to bury this mammoth project soberly. But it was not a sober time. The people had brought the wall to collapse, also in the authorities had fallen walls. "The turnaround," Succow recalls, "was a short period when people were animated and suddenly very, very much possible."
On 12 September 1990, the historic time window closed, and for the last time, the GDR Council of Ministers met in East Berlin - and adopted the national park program. As part of the Unification Treaty, the Protected Area Regulations entered into force on 3 October 1990. The concept of biosphere reserves, which combines traditional cultural landscapes with sustainable land use, had been introduced by the GDR in 1979 and was new in West Germany. There are today ten such reserves, on the Swabian Alb, for example, or in Lower Saxony's Wadden Sea.
In 1997, Michael Succow received the "Alternative Nobel Prize". It would be a nice end to the story. It became the beginning of the next chapter.
With the prize money, he laid the foundation stone for the Michael Succow Foundation, which has been working for the natural heritage in Germany since 1999, and for environmental and climate protection projects in, for example, Azerbaijan and Belarus, China, Iran and Ethiopia. How to create seemingly impossible in states with seemingly impossible political conditions - who would know that better than Michael Succow?
His eyes are on the ecological system. He sees political systems only as instruments that can be used for or against an intact nature, for or against lucky species. Even in our democracy, Succow says, he sometimes despairs. Because it is so slow and fragmented, but in the face of climate change, rapid and major changes would be necessary.
Success with the "Bettelstiftung"
This year, the Succow Foundation announced its interim results: 100 projects in 15 countries, 20 designated protected areas, 20,000 hectares of rewetted marshland, 1,400 hectares of land owned by the Succow Foundation, including the Lanken Nature Reserve on the Greifswalder Bodden. For a small foundation these are amazing achievements. Despite having around 30 employees, she does not have a large capital stock - a "mendicant", as Michael Succow says.
But he really does not have to beg. As in the time of change, he can rely on a large network of friends and supporters, in addition to Klaus Töpfer or Michael Otto (Otto Versand) as well as Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, longtime co-chairman of the Club of Rome, or entrepreneurs such as the Sauerland Dieter Mennekes, who wants to make the 340 hectares of his "Heiligenborner forest" wild, inspired by Succow.
The five-day seminar "Man and Nature in Partnership" has led 20 students to the Greifswalder Bodden. She calls Mennekes "Succownauts" a sponsor, and professors were able to suggest short-term fellows. Succow says he wants to convey something that is often neglected at universities: "a closeness to the earth, a reverence - yes, I mean, a love affair with nature."
It might sound cheesy, but Succow does, and the students feel it too. "When you hear about nature, Michel, with emotion," says one, as they sit in a circle at the end of the seminar on Succow's orchard near Greifswald, " then that's something against which you can not defend yourself. " A participant can not speak at the moment, she has to cry. "Lucky," she says as she regains her voice.
Miracles are happening from time to time
If you listen to Succow's confused thoughts as he looks up there, head down, up to the 500-year-old oak and red beech, you would not be surprised if he would approach one of the giant trees and embrace it. He does not do it. Make three of his succownauts, hand in hand, just around the mighty trunk. Succow watches, smiles. Seems to work quite well, with the earthly bondage.
With the sea bond too. As Michael Succow - "So." - has finished his remarks in the dunes of the pine forest, throw all their clothes in the sand and run to the refreshing bath in the Baltic Sea. Very far into it. The Greifswalder Bodden, a bay between Rügen and Usedom, is a shallow water. A moment later Succow trundles.
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Michael Succow, Lebrecht Jeschke, Hans Dieter Knapp, Klaus Töpfer (Foreword), Fritz Brickwedde (Foreword)
Conservation in Germany: Reviews - Insights - Views (awarded as environmental book of the year 2013!)
Publishing company:
Ch. Links Verlag
Pages:
336
Price:
EUR 30,00
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He seems a little bit Poseidonesk - white beard, waves to the belly. Even in the swim break the thoughts continue to bubble. And so Succow, the students gathered in a semicircle, holds a small nude lecture. Closer to nature does not work. He raises his arm and quotes Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: "If you want to build a ship, do not drum up men to get wood, but teach them the yearning for the vast, endless sea."
A sentence like a short description of the seminar. And from Succow's lifetime achievement: creating and protecting lucky species around the world. He can speak out in rage about the "German prosperity society", species loss, climate change, industrialized agriculture. All this had made him melancholy - what would be worth a few nature reserves, if around the world playful and hawked?
But then: Suddenly, students took to the streets for a change in climate protection. 2018 first a few, then more and more. "Totally unexpected: A movement of the boys that they did not believe in, that came with a clarity, a consequence that made many old people think," says Michael Succow. "There are sometimes miracles that nobody sees coming in. That's something that gives me a lot of hope again."
