Glenn K. Bush Ph.D.

  • Associate Scientist
Glenn Bush

Dr. Glenn Bush is an environmental economist driven by a desire to find equitable resolutions to the long-standing conflict between human development and environmental conservation. He is interested in how local behavioral phenomena and economic structures influence the outcomes of international and regional environmental policies.

Dr. Bush’s work addresses the policy, social and microeconomic factors that influence resource use decisions, with a particular focus on households and agricultural communities and enterprises in forest landscapes. He is engaged in real-world evaluation of strategies for driving sustainable development and investment incentives for forest conservation.

Two men crouching in field

Joseph Zambo and Dr. Glenn Bush examining a soil restoration pilot in Buya, Democratic Republic of Congo.

photo by Nolan Kitts

Dr. Bush leads Projet Équateur, a multi-faceted policy research and capacity building program aimed at conserving forests while promoting sustainable development and improving quality of life in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Previously, he has lived and worked in Africa and in Central and Southeast Asia as a researcher, project manager, and consultant on natural resource, environmental management and conservation projects in the public and private sector. He has held positions with the UK Government Department for International Development, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International.

He enjoys sailing, clamming, and being in the woods. He and his family are volunteer stewards for a parcel of upland fields and forest held by The 300 Committee Land Trust.

Climate change is really about poverty. The poorest people in tropical areas will be hit hardest, and it’s not their fault. Effective, equitable solutions have to account for social and economic factors, not just emissions.

Projects

A road marks a stark boundary between farmland and forest.

CONSERV

Ending legal deforestation in Brazil’s agricultural frontier
Two human figures darkly silhouetted against an orange sunset

Woodwell Climate @ Tanguro Field Station

Probing tropical ecosystem dynamics at the world’s largest agricultural frontier
an aerial photo of two men working with scientific equipment standing on a short boardwalk jutting into a rice field

Projet Équateur

Sustainable landscape management for people and nature in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Selected Publications

Evaluating the costs of primary forest conservation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, implications for policy and practice

Bush, G., F.A. Taye, C. Fleming, R.A. Samndong. (2024). Journal of Environmental Management.

Read

Evaluating the costs of primary forest conservation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, implications for policy and practice

Bush, G., F.A. Taye, C. Fleming, R.A. Samndong. (2024). Journal of Environmental Management.

Read