Ivan Dejmal has died

Prague - On Wednesday night, former Minister of the Environment and Executive Vice President of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, Ivan Dejmal, passed away at the age of 61 after a short illness. His wife, Kateřina Dejmalová, announced this today to ČTK.
"Ivan was an immensely honest and principled man, this is a personal loss for me," said the current Minister of the Environment and head of the Greens, Martin Bursík, to ČTK. "We worked together for many years; he was my colleague back in the 1980s. I immensely respected him - of course for his expertise, but primarily for his personal qualities - integrity, courage, and a sense of justice," Bursík added.
Dejmal served as Minister of the Environment from 1991 to 1992 in the government of Petr Pithart. In about a year and a half, he managed to advocate for and complete a comprehensive system of environmental legislation, particularly the key law on the protection of nature and the landscape.
During the early normalization period, he was imprisoned twice for subversion of the state and for his political views during his compulsory military service. He spent a total of four years in prison. In 1977, he signed the Charter, leading the environmental group and publishing the Ecological Bulletin.
He also participated in political dissent in other ways. For a year, he hosted the so-called Patočka University in his apartment, where people who were politically barred from pursuing higher education by the communist regime could study. Dejmal could only complete his studies at the Czech University of Life Sciences after 1989.
After leaving the ministry, Dejmal worked as a creator of spatial plans and ecological studies. He gained wider recognition again in 2000 by organizing the conference "The Face of Our Country - The Landscape of Home," to which British Prince Charles also contributed.
While still in government, Dejmal pushed for the Rural Renewal Program and participated in its implementation, among other things through the Association for Rural Renewal, which he co-founded. Together with Josef Vavroušek, he also established the Society for Sustainable Development.
Last December, he was elected vice-chairman of the newly established Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes.