Dr. Ralph Blaney has a background in land use and environmental economics, with BSc, MSc, and PhD in agricultural economics (the latter involving non-market valuation). He has over ten years’ experience working for conservation agencies as an economist, with a focus on valuing natural capital. His current role is to provide economic support primarily to the UN-REDD Programme, but also more widely across the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre’s work. As such, his main focus is supporting implementing countries with assessments of costs and benefits associated with REDD+ (with Cambodia being the location of most country support over the last year).