In the Media: May 2026

Meet Yacoub Kassouri.

Yacoub recently joined the Forestry & Environmental Stewardship faculty as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest Resources Management jointly with the Food and Resource Economics Program.

Yacoub is an interdisciplinary economist from the Ivory Coast working on the valuation of natural capital. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Felix Houphouet Boigny in Ivory Coast, where he also completed a Master’s in Human Resource Economics.

Later, Yacoub pursued and obtained his PhD in Economics at Erciyes University, Turkey, where his research focused on commodity markets, external shocks, and African economies. Before coming to UBC, Yacoub Kassouri was a Postdoctoral Researcher in biodiversity economics at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in Leipzig, Germany.

As we welcome Yacoub to the Faculty of Forestry & Environmental Stewardship, we spoke to him about his work and what he hopes to achieve during his time at UBC.

Can you tell us about your research areas and the important projects you’ve worked on?

My research focuses on the valuation of natural capital by exploring the economic connections between human and nature. During my postdoctoral work in Germany, I focused on developing a novel method to quantify the value of urban green spaces. My research largely focuses on two themes:

1. Natural capital valuation: the economic connections between nature, human health, and well-being with a concentration on urban biodiversity, individuals’ preferences for environmental goods, and non-market valuation.
2. Public policies and natural resource use in low-income countries: improving policies to increase efficiency of resource use; the relationship between conservation policy, agriculture, and economic development.

My methodical expertise comprises quantitative ecological-economic modelling, causal inference, economic experiments, conceptual modelling, and approaches from capital theory.

What inspired you to study resource economics and the relationship between people and the environment?

Born and raised in the agricultural town in Eastern Ivory Coast, I had firsthand exposure to farming communities. This shaped my understanding of the tight relationship between people’s livelihoods and the land. Experiencing how factors like poor harvests and seasonal changes affected family income and local economies inspired me to study the economic forces shaping livelihoods in vulnerable communities, with a particular focus on the links between environmental conditions, resource constraints, and rural development. These early experiences stimulate my curiosity about the links between natural resources and human well-being.

What are you most excited to work on at UBC FES?

What excites me about being here is the vibrant, interdisciplinary academic environment, the chance to work with world-class colleagues, and the strong support for research.

I aim to advance my research on the valuation of natural capital by establishing a “Natural Capital Accounting Lab” dedicated to deepening our understanding of how economic incentives shape human behavior toward nature and how economic policy instruments could contribute to conservation outcomes. The lab will develop rigorous empirical and analytical tools to strengthen the scientific foundation for sustainability in human–nature relationships and to inform more effective environmental and development policy.

I am excited by the opportunity at UBC Forestry & Environmental Stewardship to foster an interdisciplinary and critical understanding of economic approaches to forestry and conservation systems.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

During my spare time, I enjoy watching soccer and hiking around Vancouver.