PCU honours Professor Timm Hoffman

PCU honours Professor Timm Hoffman

On 8th December 2023 the Plant Conservation Unit held a retirement party in honour of Professor Timm Hoffman’s long-term contribution to the unit and UCT at large through teaching and research. The PCU team, past students, staff, and associates were in attendance to celebrate and reflect on Professor Timm Hoffman’s 23-year journey at the PCU.

Professor Timm Hoffman completed his undergraduate and honours degrees in Botany and Zoology at the University of Cape Town (1981-1984). In 1985 he returned to Port Elizabeth for his Masters at the University of Port Elizabeth (now the Nelson Mandela University), following this he upgraded his Masters and completed his PhD on the impact of grazing on the vegetation of the Sundays River Valley in 1989. He went on to pursue his post-doctoral fellowship at Jornada Long-Term Ecological Research site in Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA where he worked with Walt Whitford and post-doc colleague Craig James from Australia. In 2001 he took up the role of Leslie Hill Chair of Plant Conservation and Director of the Plant Conservation Unit. Through the course of his career, he has taught different modules based on his research experiences in southern Africa and American southwest such as land degradation, desertification and environmental change. In addition he has supervised or co-supervised 49 Honours, 50 Masters, 17 PhD students and has published a book and more than 200 articles and book chapters.

He has also won a number of awards for his outstanding work and contribution to the sciences such as the WWF Living Plant Award in 2020 and the SAAB Silver Medal Award the following year. Professor Timm Hoffman is particularly interested in how land use practices have impacted biodiversity and landscapes of the Nama Karoo, Succulent Karoo and Fynbos biomes over the last 100 years and to gather insight on this he has used different approaches including repeat photography. The PCU has developed and maintained a large database of historical photographs particularly landscape photographs. These pictures have been used by several students and colleagues in repeat photography to monitor landscape and vegetation change over time.

One of the longest running research and development projects he has been involved in is the Paulshoek community project in Namaqualand. This programme which has been running for nearly 30 years has created job opportunities and equipped locals with skills. Ms Marianna Lot, a local Research Assistant, has been an integral part of this project. She has maintained a number of long-term databases established in and around the village commons and these have been used to better understand the impacts of land use such as cultivation and grazing on biodiversity and vegetation composition.

Timm Hoffman and Marianna Lot — Professor Timm Hoffman and Ms Marianna Lot

During the farewell event current and past members of the PCU expressed their gratitude for Professor Timm Hoffman’s efforts, his leadership, and recognised the huge impact he has made on many people throughout his career. The PCU would like to wish Professor Timm Hoffman all the best for his future endeavours and we are pleased that he will be returning to UCT as a Senior Research Scholar for another three years.