Peter Messerli is professor for sustainable development at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and the director of the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE). 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. He has lived and worked more than 10 years in Madagascar and Laos directing large-scale research projects focusing on inter- and transdisciplinarity. He has an extensive experience in science-policy interactions from the local to the global level. Peter Messerli is the co-chair of Future Earth’s Global Land Programme (GLP) and has been appointed as the co-chair of the group of 15 independent scientists drafting the UN Global Sustainable Development Report 2019.