Piskernik was born in
Bad Eisenkappel in Southern
Carinthia, which remained with
Austria after the First World War, and held a
Ph.D. in botany from the
University of Vienna. Among her teachers was
Hans Molisch. She worked for the provincial museum in
Ljubljana and taught in various secondary schools. As a nationally conscious
Slovene woman, she was active in the
Carinthian plebiscite and in a club of migrants. In 1943 she was imprisoned and detained in the Nazi
concentration camp Ravensbrück. She is mentioned in the autobiographic novel "Angel of Oblivion" by the Austrian author
Maja Haderlap. After 1945 she became director of the
Museum of Natural History in Ljubljana and worked in the conservation service. In particular, she made efforts to renew and protect the Juliana Alpine Botanical Garden and
Triglav National Park. She was inspired by the Italian conservationist
Renzo Videsott. In the 1960s she headed the
Yugoslav delegation of the International Commission for the Protection of the Alps (CIPRA) and proposed a transnational nature park with Austria in the
Savinja Alps and
Karawanks. The bilateral park was, however, never realized. Today, this area is part of the
European Green Belt. She died in 1967 in Ljubljana. In 2019, Piskernik was honoured with a commemorative stamp issued in Slovenia. == Writings ==