dr. Luke Brander

Luke Brander is an environmental economist with over 20 years’ experience in applied research. He is currently working freelance based in Hong Kong and holds part-time positions as a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong. 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 ecosystem services provided by mangroves, coral reefs, wetlands, forests, grasslands, and urban open space using primary valuation methods and through meta-analyses of the ecosystem valuation literature. On-going 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 is also currently contributing to the revision process of the UN Statistics System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA). He has been closely involved with The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) initiative and led the TEEB study for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). 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.