On October 30, 2022, the biologist Dr. Christof Schenck was presented with the German Environmental Prize of the Federal Environmental Foundation by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier for his commitment to nature and species conservation. Schenck is Executive Director of the Frankfurt Zoological Society and a former scholarship-holder of the Daimler and Benz Foundation.

Wilderness areas should be protected against excessive exploitation, and their inhabitants should be able to live in harmony with nature – for his decades of commitment, Christof Schenck was awarded the German Environmental Prize 2022. Since 2000, the award-winner has been Executive Director of the Frankfurt Zoological Society, which currently supports 31 conservation programs in 18 countries, both with personnel and with funding in the amount of €24.8 million. He shares the German Environmental Prize, which is endowed with a sum of €500,000, with two colleagues.

In 1990, Schenck and his current wife received doctoral grants from the Daimler and Benz Foundation for their research into giant otters in Peru; these animals are still being counted and continue to be protected 32 years later. “The funding at that time played a pivotal role for my further career,” said the conservationist. “Furthermore, it laid the foundation for a major rainforest conservation program by the Frankfurt Zoological Society, for which 70 staff members in Peru are undertaking conservation work in eight major landscapes and national parks.”