Professor Timm Hoffman wins the SAAB 2021 Silver Medal Award

The Plant Conservation Unit congratulates our Director, Prof Timm Hoffman, on winning the SAAB 2021 Silver Medal Award!

The South African Association of Botanists (SAAB) awards the Silver Medal Award in acknowledgement of significant contributions to the advancement of botany in South Africa. Timm, who also received the WWF Living Planet Award in 2020, was grateful and honoured by the SAAB award. His presentation on 27 January 2021 provided a comprehensive overview of the work that he has undertaken with colleagues and students over the last 35 years and demonstrated the extent of change that has occurred in many of southern Africa’s diverse biomes.

Timm’s main research interests lie in how land use practices, particularly over the last 100 years, have impacted on the biodiversity and landscapes of the Succulent Karoo, Nama-Karoo and Fynbos biomes in South Africa. Using diverse methodologies such as repeat fixed-point photography, ecological surveys, and experimentation, his research provides an account of landscape and biodiversity change over time. Timm has also established a long-term, interdisciplinary research programme in Paulshoek, a communal area in Namaqualand, where the impact of natural resource use on the landscape is understood in terms of the changing social and economic environments of the region.

Congratulations Timm!

The full presentation and Q&A discussion can be viewed below.