I am a Professor of Conservation and Applied Resource Economics.

I seek to work with committed organisations and individuals to produce excellent, high impact original research.  My research interests are, in broad terms, related to biodiversity and forestry economics. Currently, I am especially focused on economic valuation of ecosystem services, incentive systems for ecosystem conservation, human-wildlife conflict, and conservation/land use planning and policy.

I am passionate about learning and teaching. I enjoy teaching economics and explaining its relevance to conserving biodiversity and the planet!  I teach on a wide range of modules in the School as part of our MSc programmes and I find it very rewarding to teach students from a wide variety of academic backgrounds and interests. I also travel overseas to deliver short courses in biodiversity economics which are specifically designed for students in those countries with no previous knowledge of economics.  

I believe in inter-disciplinarity! The complex challenges biodiversity conservation demands an interdisciplinary approach and I very much enjoy working with academics from other disciplines.

Recent Publications

Di Minin, E., MacMillan, D.C., Goodman, P.S., Escott, B., Slotow, R., and Moilanen, A. 2013. Conservation Businesses and Conservation Planning in a Biological Diversity Hotspot. Conservation Biology 44: 4: 1-13

Di Minin, E., Fraser, I., Slotow, R., MacMillan, D. C. 2012. Understanding heterogeneous preference of tourists for big game species: implications for conservation and management. Animal Conservation (on line)

Inskip, C, Ridout M., Riley, S. Fahad, Z, Tully, R., Barlow, A, Greenwood-Barlow, C, Anwar Islam, M, Roberts, T, MacMillan, D.C. 2012. Human-Tiger conflict in context: risks to lives and livelihoods in the Bangladesh Sundarbans. Human Ecology (on line)

Torres, A.B., MacMillan, D.C., Skutsch, M. and Lovett, J.C. 2012. The valuation of forest carbon services by Mexican citizens: the case of Guadalajara city and La Primavera biosphere reserve. Regional Environmental Change: 1-20

MacMillan, D.C. and Han, J.H., 2011. Cetacean by-Catch in the Korean Peninsula—by Chance or by Design? Human Ecology 39: 757-768

Full list of publications

Teaching

In 2012-2013 I am teaching:

• DI511 Biodiversity Dissertation
• DI512 Practical Research Project
• DI520 Conservation and Communities
• DI522 Research Project
• DI878 Social Science Perspectives on Conservation (2 weeks)
• DI888 Economics of Biodiversity Conservation

I also teach intensive short courses in Biodiversity Economics that have been specially designed for professionals and PGT students overseas institutions.

Research

My research interests focus on understanding the economics of biodiversity conservation and land use decision-making. I am especially excited by the notion that biodiversity conservation will be able to pay for itself through the creation of new markets and/or complimentary livelihood strategies.

My own expertise lies in valuing ecosystem services and biodiversity, human-wildlife conflict studies, spatial conservation planning, illegal wildlife trade, and land reform. I have published over 100 articles including more than 60 refereed journal papers. My research has been cited in more than 1500 other publications and my current H Index is 23 (Google Scholar).

As an economist, I am especially focused on quantitative analysis and have expertise in a range of techniques including cost-benefit analysis, contingent valuation, choice experiments, linear programming and multi-variate statistics. However, in some situations, such as poaching and illegal logging reliable economic data is difficult to obtain hence I also deploy more qualitative approaches to enrich our understanding of these clandestine economic processes.

Current Research Projects

Socio-ecological landscapes for biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation. Funded by DEFRA Darwin Initiative in collaboration with Applied Environmental Research Foundation and Pukka Herbs UK.

Market Based Scheme for Conservation in La Primavera Forest, Mexico funded by the Darwin Initiative in collaboration with University of Twente, Netherlands.

The Kinabatangan Corridor Research Project: Designing living landscapes for conservation in Sabah, Borneo. Funded by US Fish and Wildlife Service via Durrell Trust.

Current PhD students:

• Valeria Boron - Conservation of Medium-Large Mammals across Agroecosystems in the Neotropics (in association with Panthera)
• Abishek Harihar - landscape planning for tigers in North-West India (in association with the Wildlife Institute of India).
• Dan Challender - Conservation of pangolins in South-East Asia (in association with TRAFFIC). Funded by ESRC - NERC.
• Diogo Verrisimo - Design and implementation of flagship species and programmes.
• Nicky Abram - Landscape planning for biodiversity conservation in the Kinabatangan catchment area in Sabah, Borneo.
• Rajeev Raghavan - Using choice experiments to identify willingness to pay for endangered and illegally traded wild fish populations in south-western Ghats, India.
• Rehema Shoo - Using Choice Experiments to value alternative management options for Lake Natron National Park in Tanzania. Funded by Commonwealth Scholarship.
• Samia Saif - Tiger poaching in the Sunderbans (in association with the Wildlife Trust of Bangladesh).
• Niki Rust - Economic Incentives for non-lethal management of human carnivore conflict. (In association with the Cheetah Conservation Fund). Funded by ESRC.
• Sarah Tetley - Sourcing Sustainable Fishing in the UK (joint supervision with the University of Kent Business School).

Previous DICE PhD Students

• Chloe Inskip - Human-tiger conflict in Sunderbans (in association with Wildlife Trust of Bangladesh). Funded by ESRC - NERC.
• Enrico de Minin - Conservation planning in the Maputaland-Pondland-Albany Biodiversity Hotspot (in association with the Ezemvelo KwaZulu Natal Wildlife Department).
• C. Preide - 2003-2008. Local perceptions of historical landscapes in the Scottish Highlands (in association with National Trust for Scotland). Funded by ESRC.

I have had the privilege of participating in various capacities and roles as advisor to national and regional government, NGOs and to Research Councils such as the ESRC.

Recent highlights include being invited to review the Swedish Government's Biodiversity Research programme together with other academics from around the world and being invited to give a plenary address to the Education Panel of the Guiyang Environmental Forum.

This year I have been invited to sit on the Academic Programme Committee for several major international conferences including Nottingham in September 2011 on Deer and People: Past, Present and Future, TEEB 2012 and the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists in Rome, July 2011.

I am a regular reviewer for a variety of journals in my field including Ecological Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics, Human Ecology and Forestry.

Consultancies

I carried out consultancy assignments around the word for the past 15 years, primarily in south-east Asia but also the UK and Africa. Clients include the Asian Development Bank, UK and Scottish Governments, and DANIDA.

I enjoy the diversity of projects that consultancy exposes me too and the challenge of meeting client expectations under a tight schedule!

I have worked in many countries including Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Scotland.