Dr Hollie Booth is a conservation scientist and practitioner whose work sits at the interface of behavioural and social science, ecological economics, and policy, in pursuit of an overarching question: how can conservation deliver positive outcomes for both nature and people? Her research focuses on the design and rigorous evaluation of incentive-based conservation programs, using methods including economic valuation and randomised controlled trials. She is particularly interested in whether well-designed conservation incentives can drive pro-environmental behaviour change while also supporting economic welfare and distributive justice; and in building generalisable approaches that can be adapted and scaled across different social-ecological contexts.
Dr Booth returned to Cambridge — where she completed her undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences and Management Studies — after a DPhil in Zoology at the University of Oxford and an MSc in Conservation Science at Imperial College London. Over a career spanning fifteen years, she has worked across NGOs, academia, and the private sector in Southeast Asia and East Africa, including as Sharks and Rays Advisor for the Wildlife Conservation Society, Strategic Director and Head of Nature Strategies at The Biodiversity Consultancy, and Research Fellow at both Oxford and Bangor University, where she leads a Darwin Initiative-funded project delivering the world's first randomised controlled trial of an incentive-based marine conservation programme for threatened sharks and rays in Indonesia. She is also Co-Founder and Director of Kebersamaan Untuk Lautan (KUL), an Indonesian marine conservation NGO, and her work has been recognised with the ZSL Marsh Award for Marine and Freshwater Conservation and the Society for Conservation Biology's European Early Career Research Award, among others.
At Christ's, Dr Booth's research agenda centres on developing a rigorous, generalisable evidence-to-action process for incentive-based conservation, combining a multi-country field experiment, long-term local partnerships, and policy engagement. She works closely with research partners and NGOs in Indonesia, and collaborates across disciplines with economists, ecologists, and policy specialists to understand the barriers to pro-environmental behaviour, co-design and test solutions, and translate evidence into conservation practice.
Selected Publications:
Booth, H., Fajri, I., Rusdiansyiah, Banda Naira, K., Rizal, M., Adrianto, L., & Jones, J. P. G. (in press). Positive outcomes and insights for scaling from a randomized pilot of a gear exchange program to reduce bycatch in small-scale fisheries. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Pre-print available at EcoEvoRxiv.
Booth, H., Pienkowski, T., Ramdlan, M. S., Naira, K. B., Muksin., Adrianto, L., Milner-Gulland, E. J., & Ferraro, P. J. (2025). Conservation impacts and hidden actions in a randomized trial of a marine pay-to-release program. Science Advances.
Booth, H., Milner-Gulland, E. J., McCormick, N., & Starkey, M. (2024). Operationalizing transformative change for business in the context of nature positive. One Earth.
Booth, H., Ramdlan, S. M., Hafizh, A., Wongsopatty, K., Mourato, S., Pienkowski, T., Adrianto, L., & Milner-Gulland, E. J. (2023). Designing locally-appropriate conservation incentives for small-scale fishers. Biological Conservation.
Booth, H., Arlidge, S., Squires, D., & Milner-Gulland, E. J. (2021). Bycatch levies could reconcile trade-offs between blue growth and biodiversity conservation. Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Awards and Prizes:
2026 - University of Oxford MPLS Social Impact Award
2025 - Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Best Article Award (ENV Section: Interdisciplinary or Policy-Focused Contribution)
2024 - 2025 Indianapolis Prize Emerging Conservationist Award, Top Ten Finalist
2023 - ZSL Marsh Award for Marine and Freshwater Conservation
2022 - European Early Career Research Award, Society for Conservation Biology; nominated by Oxford Biology Department for the John C Marsden Medal for the best doctoral thesis in biology
2020 - Graduate Student Research Award, Society for Conservation Biology
2019 - Best Graduate Seminar, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford
2018 - Oxford-NaturalMotion Graduate Scholarship, University of Oxford
2016 - Joseph Hooker Prize, Imperial College London
Photo credit: Herry Santosa