Luke Brander is an environmental economist with over 19 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 (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and obtained his doctoral degree from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2011.
Luke is currently working as a freelance environmental economist based in Hong Kong. He holds a part-time positions at the Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam as a Senior Researcher; and 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 ecosystem services provided by marine turtles in Asia-Pacific for WWF-Australia; the valuation of terrestrial protected areas in Peninsular Malaysia for UNDP; and the development of a global database of ecosystem service values for the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). 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.