With a final Zoom session on Tuesday, September 13, CSF’s Numbers for Nature Training Institute completed its 2022 online International Economics and Finance for Environmental Leadership course.

Meeting in live sessions twice a week for 13 weeks, conservation and development professionals from around the world studied the course content through readings and pre-recorded lectures before connecting on Zoom to hear from instructors and speakers and engage with the materials through group discussions and exercises. The course content allowed students to expand their knowledge of economics and finance while also learning how it can be applied to advance conservation efforts.

“I am so grateful. I never thought I would ever enjoy economics in my life...but everything I have learned here makes so much sense" - Lucy Waruingi, 2022 International Course Participant

After completion of the course, 100% of participants reported that they would recommend this course to others, and almost all responded that this was among the best professional development courses they had ever taken.

Each of the course’s 6 modules covered a unique topic of conservation finance and economics: microeconomics, natural resource economics, environmental valuation, cost-benefit analysis, conservation finance, and environmental policy. Lectures were led by passionate instructors with expertise specific to each module’s content.  Towards the end of the course, students performed their own cost-benefit analyses to determine the economic and environmental feasibility of an energy infrastructure project. 

"Unless and until people are educated as to how these policies can work, they will fear them. They will look at them as costly to them with no actual benefit to them. We know that's incorrect, but it's incumbent upon us to educate the policymakers as well as the public." - David Johnson, CSF Instructor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Live sessions featured exercises that connected concepts from the pre-recorded lectures and readings to real scenarios. Guest speakers also enhanced the learning experience and exposed course participants to additional perspectives and insights relevant to the studies of each module. 

The third module, covering the topic of environmental valuation, featured an engaging presentation from Robert Costanza, Professor of Ecological Economics at the Institute for Global Prosperity at University College London. 

This year’s course brought together 31 individuals from 17 countries and over 20 organizations and academic institutions. To take advantage of the abundance of unique personal and professional backgrounds, participants were invited to give presentations in the course’s live sessions about their line of work and conservation experiences as well as their personal interests and cultures. 

“As a Biologist, studying Economics and related issues is very challenging. Nevertheless, CSF's instructors and staff really made it much easier and interesting,” said Bernardo Leopoldo, a biologist and course participant. “From professor David Johnson's exciting lectures to the engaging activities and exercises of Kim Bonine, I realized how essential economics is if someone wants to do Biodiversity Conservation, and how many tools we do have at our disposal to carry out this important task.” 

Register today for our 2023 Economics & Finance for Environmental Leadership course beginning August, 2023.

Watch our brief course closing video below to see our participants in action and hear about the impact of the course!