Mechtild Rössler (*1959) studied geography and literature 1978-84 at Freiburg University (Germany) and obtained a PhD (1989) in geography from the University of Hamburg (Germany). She joined the French CNRS (1998/90, Cité des sciences et de l’industrie, Paris, France), and was a visiting scholar at the University of California in Berkeley (USA, 1990/91). Since 1991, she worked for 30 years in different programmes at UNESCO (MAB programme, Culture Conventions, World Heritage) and is the former Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre (2015-2021). She is a researcher in geography, planning, institutional history and heritage, as well as a specialist of cultural landscapes and nature-culture linkages.
After her retirement end of 2021 from UNESCO, she returned to academia, the French CNRS (CNRS-UMR 8504 Géographie-Cités) and is teaching occasionally (e.g. University of Heidelberg, ICCROM). She is an elected member of the German National Commission for UNESCO and of the Kuratorium of the European Foundation Dom zu Speyer. She is also a member of different professional organisations, among them ICOMOS-IFLA, IUCN-WCPA and ICOM. She has published and co-authored 14 books and more than 130 articles, among them “Many Voices, One Vision: The Early Years of the World Heritage Convention” (Routledge 2016, with Prof. Christina Cameron).
Robert Schäfer and Urška Škerl speak to Mechtild Rössler about the evolving World Heritage Convention. They discuss the defining threat of climate change, the imbalance of the World Heritage List, and how landscape architecture—through “sponge city” concepts—can protect global heritage.
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