Emeline Hilly
Doctoral candidate
4 February 2015
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Emeline Hily is young researcher in environmental economics with the Joint Research Unit Laboratory of Forest Economics (LEF). Her research focuses on the development of financial incentives to encourage forest owners to protect biodiversity on their land in a context of climate change.
Last September, together with six other PhD students and Postdocs supported by LabEx ARBRE, Emeline organized the first ARBRE PhD and Postdoc Seminar – with great success.
Recently, Emeline completed the Science and Mediation doctoral course, a project which prepares PhD students studying with the University of Lorraine to develop how they communicate their science and work with a non-scientific public.
Emeline is currently working on her thesis in a cross-disciplinary context, as part of a collaboration between the LERFoB and LEF research units at INRA.
Below is the interview Emeline granted us recently.
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Where are you from originally?
I am originally from Lorraine. I was born in Metz and spent all of my childhood and my adolescence in a small town in Meurthe and Moselle: Pont-à-Mousson.
Can you describe your education up to now (your career path), and what led you to work with the LEF research lab at INRA?
After receiving my High School Diploma, I attended two years of Preparatory classes for the Grandes Ecoles. It is a curriculum specific to France designed to lead students to enter, among others, engineering schools.
I continued my studies at AgroParisTech, an engineering college which trains students to work in life sciences. After a year of general studies in Paris, I continued for the next 8 months studying forest engineering at AgroParisTech in Nancy. My specific focus while I was there was forest ecology and natural environments management.
I then spent a semester in the Erasmus program at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, where I took courses in environmental economics and policy. I completed my fifth year of training receiving a Masters degree in environmental economics and sustainable development which I completed in Paris at AgroParisTech.
After getting my Masters degree, I wanted to continue my studies by working towards a PhD in environmental economics. As I was interested in forest issues and biodiversity, I contacted the LEF research unit to see if I could complete a Master 2 internship there and was given the opportunity to start working on a thesis in their lab to complete my studies.
Tell us about your science – explain briefly what your specific focus is and why this is important?
My research focuses on the development and definition of incentive programs for biodiversity conservation in a context of climate change.
Conserving biodiversity is important because it boosts ecosystem productivity and drives numerous natural functions (or ecosystem services) that benefit humans. However, protecting biodiversity costs money and it doesn’t provide immediate returns: for example, the private forest owner who agrees not to cut down a certain number of mature trees in the interest in saving a biodiversity hotspot (a biogeographic region that is both a significant reservoir of biodiversity and is threatened with destruction), will lose revenue. These land owners are not systematically rewarded for their “good deeds” which explains why participation on this level does not happen as much as it needs to for effective biodiversity conservation. Added to that is the current context of climate change, when saving biodiversity has become even more of an urgent issue.
My work is focused on the process of developing financial incentives to reward forest owners who want to take an active role in biodiversity conservation, and to increase this type of participation. These financial incentives should be flexible enough to adapt to a diverse range of land owners whose ability to practice sound environmental management or whose understanding of the importance of biodiversity may vary – ultimately to encourage land owners to practice biodiversity conservation. The key element is in determining a fair price (at least equal to the financial cost of biodiversity conservation) for private land owners while justifying spending public funds in the most cost-effective way possible. In addition, implicit in defining the incentive mechanisms is determining how to control the system to prevent participants from receiving more than what they are owed, here again, to justify spending public funds wisely. Developing and defining these incentive mechanisms also needs to be scalable to adapt to climate change scenarios. Finally, these incentives need to be defined in such a way that they encourage forest owners to coordinate with each other in order to create ecological corridors that will allow species to migrate and adapt to changing habitats in response to climate change.
When did you first become interested in environmental economic, applied econometrics and ecosystem services?
Generally, I am someone who likes the outdoors and spending time in nature and environmental issues are very important to me. But it was during the time I spent studying at AgroParisTech that I discovered the forest as seen from a different angle. I began to understand just how complex it is as an environment, incredibly rich and yet not that well understood. Humans reap enormous benefits from the forest while making relatively little effort to preserve these environments. It was through my training and studies that I became even more aware of issues concerning biodiversity conservation and I knew I wanted to devote my work to this area of research.
At the same time, also while I was at AgroParisTech, I discovered economics, environmental economics in particular. I became fascinated by this area or research as its focus is on raising awareness of just how important the environment and natural resources are to our societies and how they function. It was the broad range of available tools and the possible ways to apply them in the context of developing environmental policies – with the view to changing behaviors, to making a viable difference – that ultimately convinced me to get involved in this field.
In your opinion, what will be the next important frontier for science, specifically for environmental economics?
It’s similar to other fields of research – for the past several years climate change has become one of the major topics of study for researchers in environmental economics. Understanding how our societies will be able to adapt, but also how they can mitigate the effects of climate change, is crucial. This issue applies to a range of themes covered in environmental economics like biodiversity conservation, transportation, energy, agriculture, etc.
Given that it provides us with tools and advice for implementing public policies, especially policies concerning the environment, research in environmental economics presents us with an opportunity, and an even greater responsibility, to change our behavior and how our societies function, particularly now that we are faced with climate change.
Advice for young researchers?
I’m not really sure that I can give advice to young researchers since I myself am a young researcher – I am just now finishing my first year my doctoral studies! That said, I think that working in research requires a certain patience, that its important to be persistent and determined but its important too to stay balanced and be able to step away. In my area of research, particularly when working on a theoretical thesis, a certain level of creativity is important: you need to accept that writing up an economic model takes time, and that what you think is the final draft will almost never be the one you present. That it’s important to step away sometimes and come back to the task with a clear mind.
And lastly, where do you hope your science will lead you in the future (in the short or long term)?
At the moment I am just looking at the short term: I want to continue to enjoy working on my doctoral work for the next year and a half with the same positive outlook that’s carried me this far – and to get my PhD! After that, I hope to have the opportunity to work as a post-doc in a foreign university to discover how research is done elsewhere!
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