One of the ALFAwetlands partners from Germany is the Michael Succow Foundation.
In 1999 Michael Succow founded this foundation with the prize money of the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, awarded to him in 1997. It is one of the first non-profit nature conservation foundations in the new German states. The Succow Foundation is an operational foundation and is active both nationally and internationally. Its guiding principles are: “Preserve, sustain, value”.
The Succow Foundation maintains close cooperation with scientific institutions, above all the University of Greifswald. It is a founding member and partner in the Greifswald Mire Centre established in 2015. The foundation maintains Memoranda of Understanding with other national and international research institutions.
In northeastern Germany, the Succow Foundation itself has more than ten areas in its care, among them several nature reserves. Most of these areas the Succow Foundation took over from the National Natural Heritage. Nature in these areas is to develop as undisturbed by human intervention as possible. Special nature experience offers are designed to convey an understanding of why these conservationist efforts are important.
Foundation role in ALFAwetlands
The Succow Foundation is leading ALFAwetlands Work Package 1 on Meta-analysis and land use assessment for enhancing European wetland knowledge. The Work Package is supervised by Dr Alexandra Barthelmes. The Foundation also leads a task 6.5 Advocating for and supporting evidence-based policymaking, supervised by Jan Peters. Furthermore, the Succow Foundation is working in the field of stakeholder engagement and inclusive wetland restoration in the Living Lab & Co-Creation site “River Peene Valley” Living Lab Leader is Marie Lorenz.
Meet the team
Succow Foundation team of ALFAwetlands consists of a number of dedicated experts.
Jan Peters, acts as managing director at Succow Foundation. His work focuses on peatlands and climate change with projects in Germany, the EU and internationally with main expertise on policy analysis and advocacy, stakeholder dialogue processes and peatland management strategies. He holds rich experiences in international projects on climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity conservation and development cooperation in Germany, Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.
ALFAWetlands will help to improve the knowledge base on wetland extent, drainage and use, and on this basis recommend targeted measures to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from wetlands and to protect biodiversity at the European level. It is my pleasure to contribute to this
Dr Cosima Tegetmeyer’s interests focus on peatland mapping and analysis of geospatial peatland distribution data.
Marie Lorenz is part of the peatland and climate working group at the Succow Foundation. Her work focuses on the one side, on policy analysis and advocacy for peatlands. On the other side, Marie together with Uta Berghöfer works in the field of Co-Creation in the Living Lab Upper Peene Valley focusing on participatory processes.
The group is further supported by Marina Abramchuk, first ALFAwetlands contact. Marina has a research interest in peatlands wise use, mire protection and restoration in Eastern Europe.
Photo of the team. @Michael Succow Foundation
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