[hntrader]

I'm also highly sceptical of economics as a discipline, but still can't think of who would be more appropriate to work alongside an ecologist in order to design practical policies.

Economists aren't a monolith. As the other poster in this thread mentioned, there's such a discipline called ecological economics.

Besides, even if all of them do have a terrible understanding of ecology and the importance of biodiversity, that's the reason we need a multi-disciplinary team to tackle the issue. Ecologists by themselves won't know how to align incentives or create practical policies, and economists without ecologists will be lost.

Would climatologists be able to design an effective emissions trading scheme by themselves without working with an economist/policymaker?