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Biography: Roelof Jan Benthem
Landscape Planning, 3 ( 1 9 7 6 ) 3 5 1 - - 3 5 8 © Elsevier Scientific Publishing C o m p a n y , A m s t e r d a m - - P r i n t e d in T h e N e t h e r l a n d s
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~oelof Jan Benthem was born in The Netherlands in 1911. He was originally Lrained for a job in land surveying but he followed his calling to work for the protection of nature and the landscape. A nomination as a landscape consultant in 1943 was the start of his career in The Netherlands' State Forest Service where for many years he was a Member of the Board of Directors and Head of the Landscape Planning Department. During this period he developed methods and a policy for the reconstruction and improvement of landscape in his country, where there is a high degree of pressure on land use and great changes in man's physical surroundings. As a result of his creative approach to the environmental problems he was involved in the pioneering landscape reconstructions which t o o k place in The Netherlands after World War II. The restoration of the landscape of the war damaged island of Walcheren and the landscape renewal of the areas devastated by the floods in 1953 are certainly the most well-known projects of that time. For m a n y years his d e p a r t m e n t has taken part, and still takes part, in the creation of landscape in the Zuiderzeepolder reclamations and in the Delta water control projects. It also participates in the numerous land consolidation schemes of the Ministry of Agriculture, in the landscape work for the national motorways and other highways, and in a great number of physical planning and landscape research projects. For several years Benthem acted as a board member in both the National Commission for the p r o t e c t i o n of Nature and Landscape (Contact Commissie voor Natuur- en Landschapsbescherming) and The Netherlands Society of Landscape Architects (Bond van Nederlandse Tuin- and Landschapsarchitecten). Furthermore he was either chairman or had membership of numerous committees and working groups in the field of landscape planning, land use and physical planning. Within the framework of the State Forest Service he developed the organiza-
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tion for landscape planning from a small department in the central headquarters into a decentralized network with qualified landscape architects, assistants and surveyors in the provinces and four specialized departments attached to the head office in Utrecht. This machinery enables an expanding participation of landscape planners in all kinds of public works or private projects. Supported by legislative and financial means the improvement and management of the landscape notably contribute to the habitability of this densely populated country. In his one hundred or more publications on a national and international level Benthem's ideas and experiences in the field of landscape planning can be found. He is a member of the editorial board of " G r o e n " , a monthly journal for Landscape Architecture in The Netherlands, and acts in the same capacity for the international journal "Landscape Planning". As a chairman and member of many juries he was involved in specific prize competitions for landscape planning projects. And since 1971 he has been a member of the international curatorium for the European Prize for Conservation and Landscape Planning of the Goethe Foundation in Basel. As regards his international activities it can be recorded that Benthem was founder and for several years chairman of the Landscape Planning Commission of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). He contributed to the activities for conservation and land use in the Council of Europe and in the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA). At most of the IUCN-assemblies for the last 20 years Benthem was a m e m b e r of the Dutch delegation and he acted as rapporteur-general in the technical meetings of that organisation in the Hague (1952), Edinburgh (1956) and Lucerne (1966) and presided at meetings of the Latin American Conference on the Conservation of Renewable Natural Resources (IUCN--UNESCO) in Argentina (1969), at a Symposium on Conservation of Nature and Restoration of the Natural Environment of Man in Brasil (1968), and at the conference on Environment and Energy Crisis in Turin (1974). He also contributed as a platform speaker to the I F L A congresses in Haifa (1962), Stuttgart (1966) and Montreal (1968), at the IVth Congress of the Alliance Internationale de Tourisme in Salzburg (1972) and at the Conservation and Land Drainage Conference of the British Government, London (1975). Within the framework of the European Conservation Year 1970, Benthem acted as rapporteur-general on the subject of "Urban Development and the Countryside" at the Opening Conference in Strasbourg, and in the same year he delivered a lecture at the Irish Conservation Conference in Dublin. Furthermore he contributed papers to the World Forestry Congresses in Madrid ( ! 9 6 6 ) and Buenos Aires (1972). During study-tours, he gave lectures at universities in the United Kingdom, Ireland, U.S.A., Australia, New Zealand, Yugoslavia and South Africa. Benthem is honorary corresponding member of the Institute of Landscape Architects in the United Kingdom and corresponding member of the Working
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Party on Landscape Planning in the German Federal Republic. He is Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau and was awarded the European Prize for Conservation of Nature and Landscape Planning for 1969 in Strasbourg.
A LIST OF R.J. BENTHEM's MOST IMPORTANT PUBLICATIONS 1937. With J.E. Sluiters. Zwerftochten naar Oostzanergat en Rothoek; tien jaar van waarnemen. 1. Levende Natuur, 41(8): 237--244. With J.E. Sluiters. Zwerftochten naar Oostzanergat en Rothoek; tien jaar van waarnemen. 2. Levende Natuur, 41(9) 257--268. 1941. Her Bossche Broek bedreigd. Natura, 40(8/9): 132--141. 1942. Waterland; een waardevol Nederlands landschap, I. Levende Natuur, 47(1): 7. Waterland; een waardevol Nederlands landschap, II. Levende Natuur, 47(2): 18. Waterland; een waardevol Nederlands landschap, III. Levende Natuur, 47(3): 33. Rond de IJsseldelta. Wandelaar in Weer en Wind, 1942: 197. Het stadspark als ornithologisch studieveld. Natura, 41(9/10): 63--69. 1944. De zorg voor her oude cultuurlandschap. In Weer en Wind, 9: 121--127. 1945. With E. Reinders. Voorlopig Rapport inzake de Behartiging van de Landschappelijke, Boschbouwkundige, Recreatieve en Natuurwetenschappelijke Belangen binnen het Kader van het Herstelplan voor Walcheren. Report Staatsbosbeheer, 18 pp. Landschapszorg en cultuurtechniek. In: Cultivator 1945 van de Algemene Bond voor Oud-leerlingen van Inrichtingen voor Middelbaar Onderwijs, pp. 89--103. 1946. Landschapsplannen. Natuur en Landschap, 1(1): 10--20. 1947. De verzorging van het Brabantse landschap. Lecture given at the Algemene Vergadering van de Afdeling Noordbrabant der Vereniging van Nederlandsche Gemeenten, 19 June 1947, mimeographed. De wederopbouw van ons landschap. Essay about the 19e Monumentendag, 17 April 1947, Amsterdam, mimeographed. 1949. Het beheer van ons nationaal natuurbezit. In: A.F.H. Besemer, K. Hana, N. Tinbergen and J. Wilcke (Editors), In bet Voetspoor van Thijsse. H. Veerman & Zonen, Wageningen, pp. 388--398. Reconstructie van het Landschap bij Ruilverkaveling. Orgaan der Veteniging van Technische Ambtenaren van het Kadaster, 7(2): 15 pp. 1950. Het Cultuurlandschap. In: Winst en Verlies 1925--1950, Gedenkboek Uitgegeven ter Gelegenheid van her Vijfentwintigjarig Bestaan op 10 September 1950 van "Her Oversticht". Erven J.Jo Tijl, Zwolle. Het werk van Staatsbosbeheer voor de verzorging van ons landschap, I. Natuur en Landschap, 4(1): 2--14.
351
~oelof Jan Benthem was born in The Netherlands in 1911. He was originally Lrained for a job in land surveying but he followed his calling to work for the protection of nature and the landscape. A nomination as a landscape consultant in 1943 was the start of his career in The Netherlands' State Forest Service where for many years he was a Member of the Board of Directors and Head of the Landscape Planning Department. During this period he developed methods and a policy for the reconstruction and improvement of landscape in his country, where there is a high degree of pressure on land use and great changes in man's physical surroundings. As a result of his creative approach to the environmental problems he was involved in the pioneering landscape reconstructions which t o o k place in The Netherlands after World War II. The restoration of the landscape of the war damaged island of Walcheren and the landscape renewal of the areas devastated by the floods in 1953 are certainly the most well-known projects of that time. For m a n y years his d e p a r t m e n t has taken part, and still takes part, in the creation of landscape in the Zuiderzeepolder reclamations and in the Delta water control projects. It also participates in the numerous land consolidation schemes of the Ministry of Agriculture, in the landscape work for the national motorways and other highways, and in a great number of physical planning and landscape research projects. For several years Benthem acted as a board member in both the National Commission for the p r o t e c t i o n of Nature and Landscape (Contact Commissie voor Natuur- en Landschapsbescherming) and The Netherlands Society of Landscape Architects (Bond van Nederlandse Tuin- and Landschapsarchitecten). Furthermore he was either chairman or had membership of numerous committees and working groups in the field of landscape planning, land use and physical planning. Within the framework of the State Forest Service he developed the organiza-
352
tion for landscape planning from a small department in the central headquarters into a decentralized network with qualified landscape architects, assistants and surveyors in the provinces and four specialized departments attached to the head office in Utrecht. This machinery enables an expanding participation of landscape planners in all kinds of public works or private projects. Supported by legislative and financial means the improvement and management of the landscape notably contribute to the habitability of this densely populated country. In his one hundred or more publications on a national and international level Benthem's ideas and experiences in the field of landscape planning can be found. He is a member of the editorial board of " G r o e n " , a monthly journal for Landscape Architecture in The Netherlands, and acts in the same capacity for the international journal "Landscape Planning". As a chairman and member of many juries he was involved in specific prize competitions for landscape planning projects. And since 1971 he has been a member of the international curatorium for the European Prize for Conservation and Landscape Planning of the Goethe Foundation in Basel. As regards his international activities it can be recorded that Benthem was founder and for several years chairman of the Landscape Planning Commission of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). He contributed to the activities for conservation and land use in the Council of Europe and in the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA). At most of the IUCN-assemblies for the last 20 years Benthem was a m e m b e r of the Dutch delegation and he acted as rapporteur-general in the technical meetings of that organisation in the Hague (1952), Edinburgh (1956) and Lucerne (1966) and presided at meetings of the Latin American Conference on the Conservation of Renewable Natural Resources (IUCN--UNESCO) in Argentina (1969), at a Symposium on Conservation of Nature and Restoration of the Natural Environment of Man in Brasil (1968), and at the conference on Environment and Energy Crisis in Turin (1974). He also contributed as a platform speaker to the I F L A congresses in Haifa (1962), Stuttgart (1966) and Montreal (1968), at the IVth Congress of the Alliance Internationale de Tourisme in Salzburg (1972) and at the Conservation and Land Drainage Conference of the British Government, London (1975). Within the framework of the European Conservation Year 1970, Benthem acted as rapporteur-general on the subject of "Urban Development and the Countryside" at the Opening Conference in Strasbourg, and in the same year he delivered a lecture at the Irish Conservation Conference in Dublin. Furthermore he contributed papers to the World Forestry Congresses in Madrid ( ! 9 6 6 ) and Buenos Aires (1972). During study-tours, he gave lectures at universities in the United Kingdom, Ireland, U.S.A., Australia, New Zealand, Yugoslavia and South Africa. Benthem is honorary corresponding member of the Institute of Landscape Architects in the United Kingdom and corresponding member of the Working
353
Party on Landscape Planning in the German Federal Republic. He is Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau and was awarded the European Prize for Conservation of Nature and Landscape Planning for 1969 in Strasbourg.
A LIST OF R.J. BENTHEM's MOST IMPORTANT PUBLICATIONS 1937. With J.E. Sluiters. Zwerftochten naar Oostzanergat en Rothoek; tien jaar van waarnemen. 1. Levende Natuur, 41(8): 237--244. With J.E. Sluiters. Zwerftochten naar Oostzanergat en Rothoek; tien jaar van waarnemen. 2. Levende Natuur, 41(9) 257--268. 1941. Her Bossche Broek bedreigd. Natura, 40(8/9): 132--141. 1942. Waterland; een waardevol Nederlands landschap, I. Levende Natuur, 47(1): 7. Waterland; een waardevol Nederlands landschap, II. Levende Natuur, 47(2): 18. Waterland; een waardevol Nederlands landschap, III. Levende Natuur, 47(3): 33. Rond de IJsseldelta. Wandelaar in Weer en Wind, 1942: 197. Het stadspark als ornithologisch studieveld. Natura, 41(9/10): 63--69. 1944. De zorg voor her oude cultuurlandschap. In Weer en Wind, 9: 121--127. 1945. With E. Reinders. Voorlopig Rapport inzake de Behartiging van de Landschappelijke, Boschbouwkundige, Recreatieve en Natuurwetenschappelijke Belangen binnen het Kader van het Herstelplan voor Walcheren. Report Staatsbosbeheer, 18 pp. Landschapszorg en cultuurtechniek. In: Cultivator 1945 van de Algemene Bond voor Oud-leerlingen van Inrichtingen voor Middelbaar Onderwijs, pp. 89--103. 1946. Landschapsplannen. Natuur en Landschap, 1(1): 10--20. 1947. De verzorging van het Brabantse landschap. Lecture given at the Algemene Vergadering van de Afdeling Noordbrabant der Vereniging van Nederlandsche Gemeenten, 19 June 1947, mimeographed. De wederopbouw van ons landschap. Essay about the 19e Monumentendag, 17 April 1947, Amsterdam, mimeographed. 1949. Het beheer van ons nationaal natuurbezit. In: A.F.H. Besemer, K. Hana, N. Tinbergen and J. Wilcke (Editors), In bet Voetspoor van Thijsse. H. Veerman & Zonen, Wageningen, pp. 388--398. Reconstructie van het Landschap bij Ruilverkaveling. Orgaan der Veteniging van Technische Ambtenaren van het Kadaster, 7(2): 15 pp. 1950. Het Cultuurlandschap. In: Winst en Verlies 1925--1950, Gedenkboek Uitgegeven ter Gelegenheid van her Vijfentwintigjarig Bestaan op 10 September 1950 van "Her Oversticht". Erven J.Jo Tijl, Zwolle. Het werk van Staatsbosbeheer voor de verzorging van ons landschap, I. Natuur en Landschap, 4(1): 2--14.