Madhu Verma is Indian born Environmental Economists presently working as Chief Economist at WRI India. She has worked extensively on Economic Valuation & Green Accounting of Ecosystems & Biodiversity, Ecosystem-Economy Modelling, Tiger & Snow Leopard Habitat Valuation, Forest- Fiscal Federalism and Payment for Ecosystem Services. She is a Fulbright Fellow, LEAD Fellow and World Bank EMCaB program's EEOFC Grant awardee for post doc research at the University of Massachusetts, UCAL She has authored the pioneer work of Economic Valuation of Tiger Reserves in India, which has influenced the policies and decision making process of the government She has also authored and contributed in several international reports like the UN's Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report ; The Economics of Ecosystem and Biodiversity Reports ; and the Global Assessment of Resources for Implementing the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 She has 35 years of enriched work experience with many national and international institutes, Ministries like Environment, Forest and Climate Change, MoFinance, Forestry Commission & various Finance Commissions of India and United Nations bodies, World Bank and various international funding agencies and academic institute. She has traveled across the globe to more than 30 countries for work and has more than 40 publications in international and national journals, several books & Project Reports to her credit.
Education and early career
She is a biological Science graduate with MA, M.Phil & Ph.D. in Economics with specialization in Regional Planning and Economic Growth from Barkatullah University, India. Till 2019, she worked as Professor in the department of Environment & Developmental Economics, at the Indian Institute of Forest Management, an autonomous organization of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Government of India, Bhopal, India. She has also established Centre for Ecological Services Management in 2007 at IIFM with focus on research, training and consulting activities relating to Valuation and Modeling of ecosystem services, Green Accounting and Payment for Ecosystem services and their linkages with biodiversity, culture, and livelihoods
Awards and honors
She has been recognized as INSEE Fellow in appreciation of her path breaking contributions in refining and honing ecological concepts to make them visible on the radar of policy makers. She has also recently been recognized by UN-REDD platform for ‘Women Working in Forests” on the occasion of International Women's Day of 2018. A feature on her work has been published in special issue of India today, a leading international magazine of India of 28 March 2018 on Madhya Pradesh under the category of trendsetters. She was also a panelist in the session on “Write Stuff: The state of Education” in the “India Today: The State of The State Conclave” held at Bhopal on 29 March 2018. She was nominated as "Human Star" under “Day out with a Star” platform in 2017 at the India Environment Network, a Washington DC based network to speak about Economic Valuation of Tiger Reserves in India
