Rate My Professor Tobias Plieninger

Prof. Dr. Tobias Plieninger is Professor of Social-Ecological Interactions at the Universities of Kassel and Göttingen. He previously served as Associate Professor at the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management at the University of Copenhagen from 2013 to 2017 and led a Junior Research Group on Ecosystem Services in Cultural Landscapes at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He studied forestry at the Universities of Freiburg and Göttingen, earned a PhD in Forest and Environmental Sciences from the University of Freiburg, and completed a Habilitation in Landscape Ecology at Humboldt University of Berlin.

Tobias Plieninger is a sustainability scientist focused on inter- and transdisciplinary research at the social-ecological interface, with particular emphasis on rural landscape change, ecosystem services, and sustainability transformations in agriculture, forestry, and natural resource management. He is co-editor of the books The Science and Practice of Landscape Stewardship (Cambridge University Press), European Wood-Pastures in Transitions (Routledge), and Resilience and the Cultural Landscape (Cambridge University Press). His academic distinctions include membership in Academia Europaea since 2023, recognition as a Henriette Herz Scout by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation since 2022, and designation as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher from 2019 to 2025. He serves as Lead Editor of People and Nature since 2024 and as editor for journals including Ecological Economics, Landscape and Urban Planning, Landscape Ecology, and Sustainability Science. Additional roles include Lead Author for the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment (2022-2025) and membership on scientific advisory boards and working groups for organizations such as the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.