The history of AERNA goes back to the year 1992, coinciding with the celebration of the Fourth Congress organized by the General Council of the College of Economists of Spain, dedicated to Economic Development and the Environment. This meeting helped professionals working from different approaches and disciplines in the relationship between Economics-Environment to share interests and motivations. Since then, various associations included the study of this relationship in their respective sessions.
However, in an attempt to go deeper into the interrelationship between the economic system and ecosystem with rigor and cooperation, a group of economists from Spanish and Lusitanian university agreed in late 2001 to walk together and form an association which will integrate all the economic trends that address these interrelationships. Thus, in order to promote scientific discussion of theoretical and applied aspects of sustainability and related concepts, the Spanish-Portuguese Association of Natural and Environmental Resource Economics (AERNA) was born. The first Board of Directors met on May 24, 2002, with Dr. Pablo Campos Palacín as the President.
Since then, Spanish and Portuguese researchers have been developing, individually or within research teams, increasing research and teaching in the area of Natural and Environmental Resource Economics, while at the same time society’s interest in environmental issues was also increasing. Many of these problems, such as climate change, have become central issues of the political agenda and have simultaneously occupied the interest of a growing number of researchers and even the emergence and consolidation of specialized journals.
Today, a remarkable number of young researchers have joined the small group of professionals who were working on the relationship between Economics-Environment in the early nineties, a fact which shows not only the interest of the Academy but also becomes the best guarantee that Natural and Environmental Resource Economics will continue to occupy a central place in the curriculum and research projects at universities.