本系職員
Prof. THOMPSON Benjamin S.
Associate Professor
BSc Geography – The University of Sheffield, UK
MSc Conservation Science – Imperial College London, UK
PhD Geography – National University of Singapore, SG
(852) 3943-9462
bthompson@cuhk.edu.hk 浏览個人網頁 >RESEARCH PROJECTS
As Principal Investigator:
Sustainable Business Models for Marine Conservation. Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) (ID: DE240100092). Australian Research Council (ARC). HK$2,550,000. July 2024 – August 2026.
Maximising Sustainable Marine Biodiversity Utilisation (ID: 1447/CRG/2025/63). Australia-Indonesia Knowledge Partnership Platform (KONEKSI). HK$2,650,000. April 2025 – April 2027.
Humanitech Lab Grants. Australian Red Cross Society. HK$275,000. Oct 2022 – Jan 2023.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Five representative publications in the last five years (i.e. 2022 – 2026):
Thompson. 2023. Impact investing in biodiversity conservation with bonds: An analysis of environmental and financial risk. Business Strategy and the Environment 32: 353-368.
Thompson & Rust. 2023. Blocking blockchain: Examining the social, cultural, and institutional factors causing innovation resistance to digital technology in seafood supply chains. Technology in Society 73: e102235.
Thompson. 2022. Ecotourism anywhere? The lure of ecotourism and the need to scrutinise the potential competitiveness of ecotourism developments. Tourism Management 92: e104568.
Carter, Thompson, Bull, Dickman, Jones, Shirkanth, zu Ermgassen. 2026. Demystifying Biodiversity Finance. Nature Reviews Biodiversity 2: 388–401.
Harris, Liu, Thompson. 2026. Can FinTech innovate green finance? Scrutinising the platform ecologies of FinTech for Forest restoration. Research Policy 55: e105564.
Five representative publications beyond the recent five-year period:
Thompson & Harris. 2021. Changing environment and development institutions to enable payments for ecosystem services: the role of institutional work. Global Environmental Change 67: e102227.
Thompson & Friess. 2019. Stakeholder preferences for payments for ecosystem services (PES) versus other environmental management approaches for mangrove forests. Journal of Environmental Management 233: 636-648.
Thompson. 2018. The political ecology of mangrove forest restoration in Thailand: Institutional Arrangements and Power Dynamics. Land Use Policy 78: 503-514.
Thompson, Gillen, Friess. 2018. Challenging the principles of ecotourism: insights from entrepreneurs on environmental and economic sustainability in Langkawi, Malaysia. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 26: 257-276.
Richards, Thompson, Wijedasa. 2020. Quantifying net loss of global mangrove carbon stocks from 20 years of land cover change. Nature Communications 11: 4260.
Teaching Fields
- GRMD3202 Environmental Management
- GRMD3224 Tourism Planning and Management
Research interests
- Biodiversity Conservation
- Ecotourism & Wildlife Tourism
- Environmental Finance
- Environmental Governance
- Corporate Sustainability
Services/ Posts
- Chair, Faculty Early Career Researcher (ECR) Committee, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. (2023-2025).
- Member, Faculty Research Committee, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. (2023-2025)
- Grant Assessor for Australian Research Council (ARC) (2024-present).
- Article reviewer for Nature, Nature Communications, Nature Ecology and Evolution, Global Environmental Change, Business Strategy and the Environment, and others.
SUGGESTED RESEARCH TOPICS FOR POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS
I am keen to supervise students that wish to combine interests in (1) biodiversity conservation or restoration, with interests in (2) finance, business, tourism, or governance.
Below are two suggestions, as an example. Ultimately, I am happy to recruit students and work with them to craft their own research ideas, provided they are broadly aligned with (1) and (2) above. Please see some of my research papers for further context on the topics, theories, and methods that I engage with.
Examining Biodiversity Finance Patterns
Biodiversity is facing a financial crisis: there is not enough funding available to achieve international targets set out in the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 14 ‘Life Below Water’ and 15 ‘Life on Land’. Biodiversity finance comes from public and private sources, but we know little about how effective different sources of finance are at delivering positive biodiversity outcomes, nor how funds are distributed around the world. A research opportunity exists to trace biodiversity financial flows (at multiple scales), which could be combined with research surveys and/or interviews with donors, investors, and the recipients of biodiversity finance to understand how such decisions are made, the ongoing challenges, and emerging opportunities to attracting more funding and spending as effectively as possible.
Scrutinising the ‘Big Conservation’ Agenda
‘Big Conservation’ refers to the world’s largest international environmental NGOs such as The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and Conservation International (CI). There exists ample opportunity to scrutinise the financing, strategies, and politics of these organisations (both individually, and as a collective) to understand how they govern biodiversity conservation and restoration – alongside national governments and inter-governmental organisations.