Franz Weber

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Franz Weber (born July 27 in Basel, Switzerland) is an environmentalist and animal welfare activist.

1 Life
2 Campaigns
3 Franz Weber Parks
4 Prizes and honors
5 Books
6 See also
7 External links
8 References

[edit] Life

Franz Weber began his carrier as a journalist and reporter. After his studies of philosophy and linguistics at the Sorbonne University in Paris, he worked from his Paris office from 1951 until 1973.

Weber became actively interested in ecology and conservation in 1965, when he learned about efforts to conserve the Swiss mountain region, the Engadine Valley of the Lakes. Weber decided to invest himself in the rescue and safeguarding of this region by beginning an international press campaign. At the end of a seven years battle by Weber the Swiss Federal Government declared the Engadine Valley of the Lakes a "National Conservation Region" and put it under the State's protection.^{[citation needed]} In order to be able to launch further campaigns, he quit writing for money and devoted himself entirely to the conservation of natural sites of special beauty and value in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Yugoslavia and Hungary, as well as endangered species in South America, Canada, Australia, Africa and Europe.

He founded the Franz Weber Foundation in 1975. The board is composed of 5 international personalities with Weber as president. The Foundation has today over 230'000 supporter members.

Weber is married to Judith with one daugther, Vera, and lives in Montreux, Switzerland.

[edit] Campaigns

In 1972, Lavaux, Weber launched two popular referendums for the complete protection of the Lavaux region and succeeded. [1] In 2007 the vineyard landscape of Lavaux was registered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. One of the Foundation's first international campaigns in defence of animals was the fight against the yearly slaughters of seals on the coast of Labrador in Canada, The campaign, which started in 1976, included a trip with French film actress Brigitte Bardot and 75 newspaper reporters to the Labrador seal hunting grounds.^{[citation needed]} In 1983 the European Economic Community banned all importations of baby seal pelts into the EEC.

In 1978 the Council of Europe in Strasbourg appealled to Franz Weber to save ancient Delphi in Greece from destruction by an American-Greek project of industrialization.^{[citation needed]} Weber created the successful international movement, "Save Delphi" and within only a few months stopped the project.^{[citation needed]} When, in 1986, Delphi is again threatened by industrialization "Save Delphi" was succesfully revived. In 1997, in recognition of his merits, the city of Delphi named Weber Honorary Citizen and Protector of Delphi.

In 1983 Weber battled against the destruction of the alluvial forests of the Danube between Hainburg and Vienna in Austria to build a hydro-electrical complex.^{[citation needed]} His Foundation invited 40 European journalists to Vienna and to drawn international attention to the project. On Christmas 1984 the Austrian government stopped the project and in 1995 Chancellor Franz Vranitzki decides to "offer the water forest region of the Danube to the coming generations as the first Austrian National Park".^{[citation needed]}

Also in 1983, parallel to the Danube campaign, Weber saved the turn-of-the century Grandhotel Giessbach on Lake Brienz near Interlaken from destruction by raising the funds to purchase the property. He then entrusted it to the Swiss People as a place of culture, of meeting and of rejuvenation.^{[citation needed]}

In 2008 a referendum initiated by Weber to end Swiss Air Force training flights over "tourist areas" (virtually the entire country) to reduce the "impact of noise pollution", was soundly defeated by a vote of 68.1%. Weber, who referred to the Air Force's newest jet fighter, the F/A-18 Hornet, as "oversized, ineffective, and ruinous to our country", proposed the use of simulators to replace air operations.

[edit] Franz Weber Parks

In 1989, the Franz Weber Foundation purchased Bonrook Station, a former cattle station near Pine Creek, Northern Territory, which it has since developed into a sanctuary for brumbies and native wild life. In 1990, the Togolese Government approached Weber with an appeal to save Togo's last elephants.^{[citation needed]} A convention was signed which placed the National Park of Fazao-Malfakassa into the care of the Franz Weber Foundation.

[edit] Prizes and honors

In 1974 the State of Texas and the City of Austin made Weber Honorary Citizen for his merits in conservation and in preservation of the Environment.
In 1978 he received the German Prize for Conservation of Nature
In 1979 he was awarded the German Medal of Environment
In 1981 Count Bernadette of Sweden honoured him with the European Prize for Land Conservation
In 1986 he received the Hans-Adalbert Schweigart Medal from the World Federation for the Protection of Life
In 2007 he received the Swiss “Tierweltpreis” for his lifetime work in favour of the animals.

[edit] Books

Books by Franz Weber:

"Des Montagnes à soulever" (1976, Jean Jacques Pauvert, Paris)
"Die gerettete Landschaft" (1987, Fischer-TB.-Vlg.,Ffm, ISBN 978-3596240258)
"Paradis sauvé", (1988, Favre, ISBN 978-2828902445)
"Das gerettete Paradies" (1986, Nyphenburg Verlag, Munich, ISBN 978-3485005210).

A biography about Franz Weber was written in 2004 by René Langel:

"Franz Weber — L'homme aux victoires de l'impossible" (Favre, ISBN 2-8289-0787-2)
"Franz Weber, Rebell für die Natur" (2004, Herbig, ISBN 978-3776623253)