Colin Barnes has a master’s in international relations from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in economics from the University of Manchester. His first degree was in economics and law at the University of Keele. His master’s dissertation at the University of Cambridge focused on the legal and economic aspects of natural resource agreements between developed and developing countries with reference to marine resources in coastal and island states of the Western Indian Ocean.

Colin has worked in the field of environmental economics and marine policy for a number of years in the Western Indian Ocean area together with the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC), the EU and the governments of Kenya, Mauritius and Seychelles. In the UK he has worked on the economic costs and benefits of renewable energy in Scotland as well as the economic valuation of natural assets in Cheshire.

Colin has taught courses in environmental, development economics and public sector economics at the universities of Aarhus in Denmark, Cranfield, Leeds and Swansea. He has established a network of contacts through his consultancy, Cambridge Resource Economics based in Cambridge and has worked with a number of engineering and natural resource consultancies including Arthur D Little, IPA Energy, the Marine Resource Assessment Group (MRAG), Nippon Koei and WS Atkins.