Dr. Luke Brander

Luke recently published an update of the Ecosystem Services Valuation Database (ESVD) in collaboration with the Foundation for Sustainable Development (FSD) and Scotlands Rural College (SRUC). This update was funded by the UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The ESVD now contains 4,042 records on the economic value of ecosystem services. […]

Luke recently published an article in the journal Marine Policy on the global costs and benefits of expanding marine protected areas. Marine ecosystems and the services they provide contribute greatly to human well-being but are becoming degraded in many areas around the world. The expansion of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) has been advanced as a […]

As part of the current revision process of the UN Statistics System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), Luke authored a background paper for the Expert Meeting on Ecosystem Valuation in the context of Natural Capital Accounting organised by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) in Bonn. The paper provides an overview of the environmental […]

Luke authored a toolkit on environmental economic methods for marine ecosystem management for the GEF Large Marine Ecosystems Learning Exchange and Resource Network (GEF LME:LEARN) project. GEF LME:LEARN is a GEF-UNDP-IOC/UNESCO project designed to improve global ecosystem-based governance of Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) and their coasts by generating knowledge, building capacity, harnessing public and private […]

Luke published an article in the journal Ecosystem Services on the economic value of forests in regulating landslide risk. The role of forests in regulating landslide risks is well established but estimates of the economic value of this ecosystem service are limited. In order to incorporate the role of forests for landslide risk mitigation in […]

Luke co-authored a report for WWF on the current state-of-the-art in ecosystem service-economy modelling and research. The report also identifies what new modelling and analyses are needed to fill key knowledge gaps and deliver evidence on the potential global socio-economic impacts of future changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services. The report can be accessed here: […]

Luke co-authored a guidance manual on economic valuation of marine and coastal ecosystem services. The purpose of this guidance manual is to show how the value of marine and coastal ecosystem services can be estimated and used to support decisions about the use and management of marine ecosystems. It is designed to help a broad […]

Luke co-authored five studies on the economic value of coastal and marine resources in the South Pacific as part of the Marine and Coastal Biodiversity Management in Pacific Island Countries (MACBIO) project. The studies are for Fiji, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu; and assess the economic value of subsistence fishing, commercial fisheries, mineral and […]

Luke recently completed a study on the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for the forestry sector of Adjara Autonomous Republic, Georgia. The study was commissioned by the WWF-Caucasus Programme Office. It assesses the economic value of forest ecosystem services under alternative scenarios for future forest management, focusing on ecosystem services that are of high importance […]

Luke co-authored a paper published in Nature Climate Change on the vulnerability of US shellfisheries to ocean acidification. The paper assesses multiple economic and social risk factors associated with ocean acidification, focusing on the reliance of US coastal regions on shelled mollusc harvests and the capacity of these communities to adapt to reductions in harvests. […]