Jean-Marie Pelt

Jean-Marie Pelt (24 October 1933 – 23 December 2015) was a French biologist, botanist and pharmacist with degrees in both biology and pharmacy.

He was professor at the University of Lorraine, specializing in medicinal plants and traditional pharmacopeia, and is the author of several scientific articles and books on pharmaceutical plants, plant biology and urban ecology. Pelt was known to the French public as the producer of several television series and radio broadcasts on plant biology and ecology. He has been nicknamed the Konrad Lorenz of the vegetable world.

Through his academic career, Pelt studied the science of medicinal plants, phytopharmacology, phytotherapy, and phytotoxicology. He specifically focused on the repertories of drugs and medicinal plants of Afghanistan, Chile, Europe, and Yemen.

In addition to his research work at the university of Nancy and more recently the University of Lorraine, Pelt founded the European Institute of Ecology in 1972 and co-founded the French Society of Ethnopharmacology in 1987 and the Committee of Independent Research and Information on the Genetic Engineering in 1999. Along with Simone Veil, Jacques Delors or Corinne Lepage, Pelt was a fellow member of the Committee 21, the French deliberative assembly for the environment and sustainable development which is in charge of implementing the Agenda 21 action plan.

As municipal councilor of Metz between 1971 and 1983, Pelt pioneered a policy of urban ecology. Because of the failure in post-war urban planning and housing estates occurring in Europe during the 1960s, and gathering inspiration from the concepts of CIAM, Professor Pelt initiated a new approach towards the urban environment. He developed his ideas on this topic in The Re-Naturalized Human, a pioneering book from 1977 which was awarded the European Prize of Ecology.

Based on the ideas of the Chicago School, Pelt's theories advocated for a better integration of humans into their environment and developed a concept concerning the relation between "stones and waters". His ideas were materialized in Metz with the establishment of extensive open areas surrounding the Moselle and the Seille rivers and the development of large areas for walking. He died on 23 December 2015.

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