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Research Fellow · Fall 2025 - Present · Bass Connections (’25-’26) · Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability
Analyze five recent DfNS in Belize, Ecuador, El Salvador, Bahamas and Barbados to evaluate how these new swaps measure up with respect to financial impact, conservation impact, sovereignty concerns and transparency.Four key questions:
- Can the improvements of the new generation of DfNS be quantified compared to earlier swaps?
- What explains the variation in conservation impact, sovereignty infringement and transparency across the recent DfNS?
- How can the debt swap model be reformed to enhance conservation impact and debt relief?
- Can these swaps be scaled to significantly contribute to the achievement of national commitments to climate and biodiversity?
- Financial Impact: Team members will analyze changes in debt sustainability and sovereign credit ratings through financial modelling of debt servicing, credit rating data analyses and key informant interviews (KIIs) with government officials and other stakeholders.
- Conservation Impact: The team will analyze changes in biodiversity and ecosystem health and reductions in conservation threats (e.g. illegal fishing) through remote sensing, surveys of fish markets, government data, and KIIs with local NGOs, fishers and other stakeholders.
- Sovereignty and Transparency: Team members will evaluate transparency concerns through analysis of government data, media analyses and KIIs with community representatives, local NGOs and other stakeholders.
Exploration of Increasing Participation of Underserved and Small Holder Landowners in Ecosystem Services Markets
Exploration of Increasing Participation of Underserved and Small Holder Landowners in Ecosystem Services Markets
Research Fellow · Jun 2025 - Present · Croatan Institute
This project will seek to understand the full extent of opportunities and barriers for smallholder and underserved forest landowners in Tennessee and North Carolina watersheds to participate in emerging ecosystem service markets, including both voluntary markets and compliance markets. Findings will be used to: 1) build stakeholders’ knowledge of markets and barriers in the region; 2) determine the economic value of various ecosystem services, and corresponding markets that exist to monetize these services; and 3) implement a pilot project that uses innovative finance to give smallholder/underserved landowners access to these markets.
Impacts of management effectiveness of the Yellow River Basin Nature Reserves on the local development - Based on social-ecological coupling coordination
Impacts of management effectiveness of the Yellow River Basin Nature Reserves on the local development - Based on social-ecological coupling coordination
Research Assistant · Jan 2023 - Jun 2024 · Youth Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72204252)
This project aims to measure the impact of the management elements (e.g., management basis, management mechanism, management behavior and management effect) of national protected areas (PAs) in the Yellow River Basin on the social–ecological coupling coordination degree of PAs, analyze its inherent mechanism, and explore the effective governance model of PAs in the Yellow River Basin.
"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82)
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