29/08/2024 Congratulations! Dr Franziska Tanneberger has been awarded the German Environmental Award of the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU) 2024, recognising the co-director of the Greifswald Mire Centre (GMC) as one of the world's most influential researchers on peatlands and their role in climate and biodiversity. She is regarded as a driving force in the revitalisation of peatlands and as a bridge builder between science, politics and agriculture. She shares the award with engineer Thomas Speidel from Nürtingen near Stuttgart.

This is the third time in a short period that one of the most highly endowed environmental awards in Europe has gone to a representative of peatland research in Greifswald. In 2021, "Moorpapst" Prof Hans Joosten was one of the two winners of the annual award, which is endowed with a total of 500,000 euros. In 2015, Prof. Michael Succow was honoured with the award as an exceptional personality in nature conservation. On 27th October, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will present this year's German Environmental Award in Mainz.

"As an excellent and globally recognised peatland researcher, Franziska Tanneberger and her team have worked tirelessly to place the importance of peatland protection and rewetting for a future worth living in political decision-making processes both nationally and internationally," explains DBU Secretary General Alexander Bonde. A landscape ecologist by training, she completed her doctorate on the sedge warbler and wrote her habilitation treatise on "Biodiversity and ecosystem services of near-natural and rewetted fens in Central and Eastern Europe - between wilderness and paludiculture". Today she teaches and researches at the University of Greifswald. Since 2015, Dr Franziska Tanneberger has headed the Greifswald Mire Centre together with Dr Greta Gaudig. It is a cooperation between the University, the Michael Succow Foundation and Duene e.V.. Franziska Tanneberger is a member of the German Federal Government's Council for Sustainable Development (RNE).