Association of German Landscape Architects honors achievements of the visionary and bdla honorary member

Klaus Töpfer is dead. The former Federal Environment Minister and CDU politician died on June 8, 2024 at the age of 85. The Association of German Landscape Architects received the news of his death with great sadness; Dr. Töpfer was an honorary member of the bdla.

Klaus Töpfer was one of the most prominent environmental politicians both nationally and internationally. For decades, he consistently campaigned for environmental protection. During his time in office as Minister of the Environment in Rhineland-Palatinate, the Nature Conservation Act was amended in 1987, giving landscape planning a central role and establishing a legal authorization for landscape architects to submit plans for landscape planning. In an interview in the early 1990s, he said: "Just as a commander is nothing without soldiers, an environment minister can do nothing without landscape architects. Landscape architects are my field troops."

Throughout his time in political office and his socio-political commitment, "Mr. Environment" was committed to finding an ecologically satisfactory, economically viable and socially balanced solution to global environmental problems. Dr. Töpfer introduced the topic of sustainability into the political debate at a very early stage, in the context that a sensible planning culture is a prerequisite for the success of sustainable projects. He was convinced that environmental policy is the peace policy of the future and was committed to it with passion and pragmatism.

In the laudatory speech for the awarding of honorary bdla membership to Klaus Töpfer on September 20, 2013, Ulrich Burchardt, Lord Mayor of the City of Constance, said: "You are one of the pioneers in the field of sustainability, not only for Germany, but also on the international stage. (...) As Federal Minister of the Environment from 1987 to 1994 and as Federal Minister of Construction from 1994 to 1998, you left a clear mark with the creation of an environmental union in a united Germany, your advocacy of integrated environmental protection and the principles of sustainability at national level, among other things."

By awarding Klaus Töpfer honorary membership, the bdla acknowledged the commitment of the visionary and great environmental politician, "as sustainability is the fundamental principle to which planning in its best form must be committed and whose importance for shaping an environment worth living in cannot be valued highly enough".

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