Greifswald (dpa / mv) - The Greifswald professor and moor expert Hans Joosten receives the Federal Cross of Merit. On Friday, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will honor him at Bellevue Palace in Berlin, the Greifswald Moor Center announced on Wednesday.
The native Dutchman drew attention to the climate-damaging effects of drained moors and the positive effects of rewetting, according to the reasoning. With the Greifswald Moor Center he co-founded one of the world's most sought-after research centers for climate protection. He also showed practical ways in which moors can be used in climate-friendly agriculture as part of the so-called "Paludiculture", thereby shaping a whole new discipline.
The scientist, who was born in 1955, coined the demand "moor must be wet!". After studying biology and various scientific positions, the moor expert and winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize, Michael Succow, brought him to Greifswald in 1996. Initially, Joosten was a research assistant there. Eventually he headed a working group until 2021. Even after the end of his work at the university, Joosten did not let go of the Moore, as he said last year.
He has countless publications and has already received several awards. Last year, together with the biodiversity researcher Katrin Böhning-Gaese, he received the German Environmental Prize, which is endowed with 500,000 euros.
Joosten is to be honored along with 20 other people on the occasion of the upcoming Day of German Unity. They make an outstanding contribution to finding solutions to the global challenges of our time, such as the war of aggression against Ukraine, the corona pandemic, poverty reduction, migration and climate change, and to strengthening cohesion in our country, it said, referring to the Office of the Federal President.
