Honorary Member 2025
PD Dr. Franziska Tanneberger

For her outstanding contributions to ornithology and biodiversity research, her internationally recognized work on the protection of peatlands and the sedge warbler, as well as her many years of service on the board of the DOG, through which she has sustainably shaped the Society’s visibility.

Laudation

Rheingold Hall Mainz, October 27, 2024. Presentation of the German Environmental Prize by President Steinmeier. In the packed auditorium, a sedge warbler appears on the giant screen. The tiny 12 cm bird receives thunderous applause. How is that possible?

Franziska Tanneberger makes it possible. In just a few sentences, she builds a bridge from top-level ornithological research to the major questions of climate protection, peatland conservation, and social transformation — thus encapsulating her work. The German Environmental Prize she receives is Europe’s most highly endowed environmental award.

Franziska studied landscape ecology and nature conservation in Greifswald, shaped by Michael Succow. A recommendation from Norbert Schäff awakened her desire to complete an internship in Belarus—then a scarcely visited country, but a country of mires. There she came to know the globally endangered Aquatic Warbler as an icon of nature conservation and soon became a member of the BirdLife International Aquatic Warbler Conservation Team, whose projects were supported multiple times by the DOG. In 2003, she completed her diploma thesis on mire ecology in western Siberia; her dissertation on the Pomeranian population of the Aquatic Warbler was awarded the UNEP/CMS Thesis Award in 2011.

Determined, she continued along her path: as co-director of the Greifswald Mire Centre, she succeeded in placing mire and climate research at the highest political level—for example in the Future Council of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania or in the Council for Sustainable Development of the German Federal Government. For the UN Global Peatland Assessment, she was a co-author for Europe; in 2023, she habilitated on biodiversity and ecosystem services of rewetted peatlands. Her numerous publications—from the Aquatic Warbler Conservation Handbook to specialist and popular science books on peatlands—combine scientific depth with social relevance. In an honorary capacity, she also serves on the boards of several major foundations, such as the Michael Otto Environmental Foundation and the David Nature Foundation.

Her scientific work is impressive, but so is her commitment to the German Ornithological Society. For eight years, she served on the board as recording secretary. Her minutes—meticulous, precise, and produced in record time—set standards and significantly facilitated the Society’s work. In addition, she shaped the DOG with valuable impulses: she contributed ideas for supporting young ornithologists, strengthened the Society’s international visibility, and advocated emphatically for a scholarship program for Ukrainian ornithologists—a sign of lived solidarity and European responsibility.

For Franziska, the connection between mire ecology, climate protection, and ornithological research was never a contradiction, but a matter close to her heart. She emphasizes that conserving biodiversity is even more complex than climate protection—and that ornithological research plays a key role in this.

With the awarding of honorary membership, the German Ornithological Society today honors a scientist who places our field in a broader ecological and societal context and thus plays a decisive role in shaping the future of ornithology. Thank you very much and congratulations!

Erfurt, 19 September 2025

Dr. Dorit Visbeck-Liebers 
President

Dr. Martin Flade
Orator