Dr. Obadiah Ngigi is an Agricultural, Environmental and Natural Resource Economist with expertise in sustainable finance, environmental economics, climate-smart agriculture, and conservation investment. His research focuses on developing innovative financial mechanisms that mobilize public and private capital for nature conservation while improving rural livelihoods and ecosystem resilience.
As a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Innovative Financing for Nature at the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery (LCNR), Dr. Ngigi investigates scalable approaches to financing biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration. His work explores the design of outcome-based finance instruments, including biodiversity credits, integrated carbon and biodiversity markets, regenerative agriculture finance, and community-led conservation investment models that generate measurable ecological and social outcomes.
Dr. Ngigi has extensive experience in research, agribusiness development, and environmental entrepreneurship, having co-founded award-winning ventures that integrate climate risk, sustainable agriculture, and financial innovation. He is passionate about bridging the gap between scientific research, policy, and investment to create credible, investable, and equitable nature finance solutions capable of accelerating the transition to a nature-positive economy.
Related Research Themes
Policy engagement for nature recovery
We work with policy-makers to foster effective approaches to nature recovery, using the Centre's unique evidence-base and compelling stories about nature and its value to society.
Society
Encompassing the governance and socio-cultural dimensions of nature recovery.
Finance
Scaling finance and investment for rapid nature recovery at a global scale.
Human health and wellbeing
Exploring, understanding, and determining those aspects of nature which directly contribute to improvements in physical and mental health and wellbeing.
Ecology
Testing the effectiveness of different ecological approaches for nature recovery to support biodiversity and the delivery of ecosystem services such as climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Related Toolkits
Remote Sensing
Working across pristine and human modified temperate and tropical forest ecosystems to understand and generate new knowledge about their functionality, health and resilience.
Artificial Intelligence
Developing AI algorithms to monitor, predict, simulate and contrast the baseline change in nature with the impact of interventions.
Related Projects
Ecoacoustics for assessing ecosystem health and function, from air to soil
Developing scaleable, transferable, and open approaches for ecoacoustics to assess nature recovery across global ecosystems
Assessing Ecosystem Health Across a Gradient of Herbivory in East African Savannas
Identifying tipping points by quantifying key indicators of ecosystem health in East African savannas.
The Energy of Nature
What energy flow can reveal about the functioning & health of ecosystems, as well as its potential to serve as a metric for tracking the decline & recovery of nature
