The new World Bank report, “Banking on Protected Areas: Promoting Sustainable Protected Area Tourism to Benefit Local Communities”, was launched on June 14, 2021. The report estimates the economic impact of tourism in protected areas on the local economies and makes the case that the promotion of sustainable tourism in protected areas should be actively included in economic development and recovery strategies given its ability to support economic growth, generate jobs and conserve biodiversity.
At this online seminar, co-authors of the report, Urvashi Narain, Lead Economist, Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy Global Practice, and Phoebe Spencer, Environment Specialist, Environment, Natural Resources, and Blue Economy Global Practice, introduced the main points of the report.
Date/Time:
8am-9am, Friday June 25, 2021 (Japan Standard Time)
Speakers:
Lead Economist, Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy Global Practice, World Bank
Urvashi Narain is a lead economist in the World Bank’s Environment, Natural Resources, and Blue Economy global practice, with over 20 years’ experience on issues at the intersection of environment and development policy. Her areas of expertise span from air pollution management, and watershed management, to nature-based tourism. She led the 2016 World Bank publication: The Cost of Air Pollution: Strengthening the Economic Case for Action that influenced World Bank operations in air quality management across South Asia, Middle East and North Africa, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Currently she leads the Air Pollution and COVID-19 initiative at the Bank. For the past six years she has developed a partnership with the Natural Capital Project to bring innovative tools to World Bank operations on watershed management mapping, valuing, and prioritizing investments in ecosystem services. Until recently she led the Nature-based Tourism Community at the World Bank, and currently leads the Environmental Economics Community, a group of 40 environmental economists at the World Bank. She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Environmental and Resource Economics, and Land Economics.
Environment Specialist, Environment, Natural Resources, and Blue Economy Global Practice, World Bank
Phoebe Spencer joined the World Bank in 2017 and entered the Young Professionals Program in September 2020, working with the Environment, Natural Resources, and Blue Economy Global Practice in the East & Southern Africa Region. Phoebe currently works on the economics of protected area tourism, avoiding degradation of forest resources in Madagascar, implementing the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Framework, and understanding relationships between natural resource management, fragility, and conflict. Phoebe holds a PhD in Natural Resources and an MSc in Community Development and Applied Economics from the University of Vermont and a BA in Anthropology and Geography from McGill University. Prior to joining the World Bank, she conducted research with the UN Statistics Division and the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy.
Presentation material:
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