Ecological Economics (MSc)

Tillem Burlace

Nationality: Australian/Dutch

Profile: Experience in environment and climate change policy and programs, including nearly four years working as an economist and policy adviser with the Victorian Government (Australia) and one year working with a Vietnamese civil society organisation on sustainable forest management, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction.

I had the opportunity to work with Australia's Victorian Government developing climate change policy and helping to develop and implement an offset program for native vegetation. To broaden my understanding in this field, and to satisfy my desire to apply my skills more directly, I spent 12 months in Hanoi working with a Vietnamese civil society organisation. My primary role was to work with local communities to help them adapt and become more resilient to the changing climate - in particular, to more frequent and severe natural disasters. I also participated in a number of Vietnamese networks working to address climate change and develop the UN REDD+ (reduction in emissions in deforestation and forest degradation) pilot in Vietnam, and helped my organisation coordinate the Vietnamese non-government organisations’ Forest Law, Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) network.

I decided to return to study because of my desire to spend time in an environment where I can learn and be mentored by experts with experience in my field who will challenge my approach and help me to focus in more detail on developing solutions to some of the issues I have come across. My deep desire to concentrate on the technical aspects of developing environmental policy led me to the decision to go back to university to study in more detail the economic mechanisms to create the right incentives for environmental and climate protection.

I believe that ecological economics offers a way to balance competing social, economic and environmental demands. Through environmental assessments, innovative cost-benefit analysis and by considering policy tools such as market-based instruments, it is possible to reveal the true trade-offs of our actions, helping to change the decision-making equation. I believe that by fully accounting for environmental costs and benefits we can create a system with the correct incentives where people are driven to do the right thing.