Luke Brander is an environmental economist with over 18 years experience in applied research. He obtained his Masters degree in Environmental and Resource Economics at University College London (1997-98). From April 2000 to September 2010 he worked as a researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies (VU University Amsterdam) and obtained his doctoral degree from the VU University Amsterdam in 2011.
Luke is currently working as a freelance environmental economist based in Hong Kong. He holds a part-time position at the Faculty of Social Science, University of Hong Kong, as an Honorary Associate Professor.
Luke’s main research interests are in the design of economic instruments to control environmental problems and the valuation of natural resources and environmental impacts. He has worked on the valuation of wetlands, forests, grasslands, mangroves, coral reefs and urban open space using primary valuation methods and through meta-analyses of the ecosystem valuation literature.
On-going and recent projects include the valuation of forest and watershed services in Sarawak for WWF Malaysia; Cost-Benefit Analysis of landscape restoration options in Cambodia for IUCN and FAO; the valuation of mangroves and urban ponds for ecosystem based adaptation to climate change in Hue, Vietnam; and the valuation of terrestrial protected areas in Peninsular Malaysia for UNDP. He has been closely involved with The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) initiative and led the ASEAN TEEB scoping study.
Luke is an experienced teacher of environmental economics and has given university courses at Masters level, tailored workshops to policy makers and practitioners, and supervises PhD research.