Ben Balmford

University of Exeter | UoE · Land, Environment, Economics and Policy Institute; Department of Economics

Understanding the relationship between a population's probability of extinction and its carrying capacity is key in assessing conservation status, and critical to efforts to understand and mitigate the ongoing biodiversity crisis. Despite this, there has been limited research into the form of this relationshop. We conducted around five billion popu...

Understanding the relationship between a population’s probability of extinction and its carrying capacity is key in assessing conservation status, and critical to efforts to understand and mitigate the ongoing biodiversity crisis. Despite this, there has been limited research into the form of this relationship. We conducted around five billion popu...

Land use change is crucial to addressing the existential threats of climate change and biodiversity loss while enhancing food security [M. Zurek et al. , Science 376 , 1416–1421 (2022)]. The interconnected and spatially varying nature of the impacts of land use change means that these challenges must be addressed simultaneously [H.-O. Pörtner et al...

Biodiversity is a multifaceted component of natural capital and challenges traditional valuation methods. We therefore propose a cost-based approach, novel in its application to biodiversity, and seek to define a metric that accurately reflects within-class substitutability of different biodiversity attributes. Preferences from the British public o...

There is limited quantitative evidence of the effects of socio‐economic shocks on biological resource use. Focusing on wild meat hunting, a substantial livelihood and food source in tropical regions, we evaluated the impacts of the shock from Nigeria's coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) lockdown on species exploitation around a global biodiversity hots...

Hunting wild animals for food and income, which is pervasive across tropical regions, drives biodiversity loss. Interventions to promote the sustainability of wild meat harvesting require information on hunter behavior. Here we monitored the hunting activities of 33 hunters in SE Nigeria over three years (1,106 hunter-months) to identify correlates...

There has been limited quantitative research into the effects of socio-economic shocks on biological resource use. Focusing on wild meat hunting, a substantial livelihood and food source in tropical regions, we evaluated the impacts of the shock from Nigeria’s COVID-19 lockdown on species exploitation around a global biodiversity hotspot. Using a t...

Sustaining future generations requires cooperation today. While individuals’ selfish interests threaten to undermine cooperation, social institutions can foster cooperation in intergenerational situations without ambiguity. However, in numerous settings, from climate change to the biodiversity crisis, there exists considerable ambiguity in the degr...

Coronavirus has claimed the lives of over half a million people world-wide and this death toll continues to rise rapidly each day. In the absence of a vaccine, non-clinical preventative measures have been implemented as the principal means of limiting deaths. However, these measures have caused unprecedented disruption to daily lives and economic a...

As environmental scientists working in countries whose COVID-linked deaths already exceed their military casualties from all campaigns since 1945, we believe there are significant messages from the handling of this horrific disease for efforts addressing the enormous challenges posed by the ongoing extinction and climate emergencies.

Estimates of the Value of Statistical Life (VSL) provide a vital input to a variety of policy decisions ranging from health provision to transportation planning. However, the bulk of VSL research has focussed on estimating average values rather than taking account of the potential variation in VSL across groups. Policymakers are particularly concer...

In early 2019 the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union and with it the Common Agricultural Policy. The UK Government has announced its intentions to formulate a novel agricultural policy following the principle that public funding should be restricted to the provision of public goods. However, the acceptance, interpretation and applica...

Two solutions, at opposite ends of a continuum, have been proposed to limit negative impacts of human agricultural demand on biodiversity. Under land sharing, farmed landscapes are made as beneficial to wild species as possible, usually at the cost of lower yields. Under land sparing, yields are maximised and land not needed for farming is spared f...

In early 2019 the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union and with it the Common Agricultural Policy. The UK Government has announced its intentions to formulate a novel agricultural policy following the principle that public funding should be restricted to the provision of public goods. However, the acceptance, interpretation and applica...

Members of the amaryllid genus Brunsvigia appear to show considerable variation in pollination syndromes, but experimental studies have been limited to two species, one pollinated by sunbirds and one by moths. Here we present the results of a simple exclusion experiment designed to shed light on the pollinators of the narrowly distributed species B...