Peter Messerli is Professor for Sustainable Development and the director of the Wyss Academy for Nature at the University of Bern, Switzerland.
As a land system scientist and human geographer, his research interests lie in the sustainable development of social-ecological systems in Africa and Asia. He focuses on increasingly globalized and competing claims on land, rural transformation processes, and spatial manifestations of their outcomes in the Global South.
He has worked more than 10 years in Africa and Asia and was the director of the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) at the University of Bern from 2009 to 2020.
Peter Messerli occupies many functions in advising and guiding governmental, scientific, and civil-society organisations related to sustainable development. He has been the co-chair of the Independent Group of Scientists appointed by the UN Secretary General to write the UN Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) in 2019.