Pacay, Eduardo
Eduardo Pacay is a forest engineer with an MSc. in Environmental Socioeconomics from the Tropical Agriculture Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), Costa Rica. He works on the impact evaluation of environmental conservation policies and programs, using spatial econometric analysis.
He has collaborated with studies focused on measuring the impact of forest conservation policies on deforestation, climate-related disaster occurrence, and public health in different Latin American countries. Moreover, Eduardo has worked on generating econometric models for future deforestation prediction and the construction of disaster risk indices caused by extreme climatic events. He has also participated in consultancies on the economic valuation of ecosystem services. Likewise, he has also worked on financial and economic evaluation of projects and interventions related to water and agriculture.
Eduardo also works in climate finance, especially in financing strategies for adaptation to climate change in nature-based solutions. Part of his current work on these topics is for the Scaling Up of Ecosystem-based Adaptation Measures (EbA) in the Latin American program. On the other hand, at the beginning of his professional career, Eduardo worked on developing productive and environmental conservation projects with indigenous populations located in protected areas and biological corridors in Guatemala.
Research interests
The research interests of Eduardo are as follows:
- Impact evaluation of policies and programs related to deforestation, protected areas, climate change adaptation, water, and agriculture.
- Economic valuation of ecosystem services
- Cost-benefit analysis of projects and interventions on the environment and the development.
- Climate finances focused on adaptation themes.
Mentoring
At the Tropical Agriculture Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), Costa Rica, Eduardo currently lectures the course on Quantitative Methods for Environmental Socioeconomics.
Also, he has been invited to teach in other courses on topics like financing mechanisms to conserve ecosystemic services and biodiversity, and financial and economic analysis of agroforestry systems.
Grants and consultancy
Eduardo has received fellowships from the Agriculture Ministry of Guatemala and the Rafael Landivar University of Guatemala. Also, he received the German Academic Exchange Program (DAAD) Fellowship to proceed with his MSc studies at CATIE. Nowadays, he is a member of the Editorial Committee of CATIE.
Awards
At the Universidad Rafael Landivar, Eduardo was distinguished with the Best Student Award of the 2005-2011 class.