26/09/24 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is hosting the multi-day celebrations for German Unity Day this year. An opportunity to present the state's moors and research with a look into the past and perspectives for the future - packed into a varied program. Entertaining, open to the public and free of charge on Thursday, October 3 from 15:15-16:45 on the Zukunftsforum stage in the inner courtyard of Schwerin Castle:

15:15 “Moor muss nass, oder was” - A play by the 9th grade of the Martinschule Greifswald: the moor researcher Prof. Dr. Hans Joosten from Greifswald manages to travel into the GDR past to the year 1958 with the help of Mephisto. There, thousands of young people are busy draining the Friedländer Große Wiese, a vast peatland in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Why are they doing this, will the professor succeed in convincing the young people to stop their work and what plans is Mephisto actually pursuing?

15:45 Back in the present, the students meet the bog professor in real life. They ask him questions: Why would Joosten have preferred to stay in the past and why did the enthusiasm of the past turn into the disaster of today?

16:00 What potential does paludiculture offer for agriculture and the economy? What needs to happen politically for more paludiculture and how can research contribute to this? Dr. Franziska Tanneberger (GMC Director and winner of the German Environmental Award), Dr. Till Backhaus (Minister for the Environment and Agriculture MV), Tobias Gruber (Division Manager Sustainability OTTO Group) and farmer Robert Wellen will discuss these issues. The event will be moderated by Jan Meßerschmidt, Head of University Communications at the University of Greifswald.

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).