Daniel Miller

Funding for biodiversity is critical to achieving international conservation and sustainable development goals. However, investment decisions are hindered by lack of information on financial flows and considerable uncertainty over the likely impact of conservation spending. Miller will share results from recent research on both the allocation and effectiveness of international conservation funding. He will demonstrate an evidence-based model that can be used to quantify how conservation spending reduces the rate of biodiversity loss. Using this model, he and his colleagues find that conservation investment reduced biodiversity loss in 109 countries by a median average of 29% per country between 1996 and 2008. Results also show that biodiversity changes in signatory countries can be predicted with high accuracy using the model, which balances the effects of conservation investment against various human development pressures. The presentation will conclude by identifying several major frontiers in research into the effectiveness of conservation funding, including use of this dual model for resource allocation decisions under different scenarios, the need for new approaches and technologies to better track conservation financing, and more concerted effort to analyze the long-term effects of external support for biodiversity conservation efforts across the globe.

Dr. Miller’s research and teaching focus on international environmental politics and policy, especially relating to forests. Dr. Miller previously held staff positions at the Program on Forests at the World Bank and the MacArthur Foundation. He completed his Ph.D. in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan and earned undergraduate and Master’s degrees in Political Science at the University of Illinois.