Prof.

Peter

Messerli

Areas of professional focus at CDE

• Land system science
• Sustainable rural development in the Global South
• Evidence informed policy and decision-making
• Sustainability governance and multi-level multi-stakeholder processes
• Shifting cultivation and related transformation processes under global change

​Projects

• "Managing telecoupled landscapes for the sustainable provision of ecosystem services and poverty alleviation"
• Land Matrix Project: a global overview of large-scale land acquisitions in the global South
• Land Observatory: a pilot project for increasing the transparency of transnational land acquisitions in Laos, Cambodia, Tanzania, Madagascar, and Peru
• Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS) research project: Large-Scale Land Acquisitions In Southeast Asia: Rural transformations between global agendas and people’s right to food
• The Agrobiodiversity Initiative (TABI) in Lao PDR
• Lao DECIDE Info Project

Further professional interests

• Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research
• Research partnerships with developing countries
• Knowledge-based dialogues between science and society

Field experience

10 years of field experience mainly in Lao PDR, Madagascar, and Ethiopia; work experience in various other CDE core regions including Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and East Africa

Languages

German, English, French, Spanish; basic grasp of Lao and Malagasy