Oberle was born in
St. Gallen, Switzerland on 12 October 1955, and grew up in
Locarno and
Zürich. He took biology and environmental sciences at
ETH Zurich and obtained his PhD. Oberle was Professor at the
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Chair of the Green Economy and Resource Governance program at the
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, and is a former director of the
Swiss Federal Office for the Environment and State Secretary for the Environment. He was Director General of the
International Union for Conservation of Nature. == See also ==