Philippe Le Billon

Professor, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs
University of British Columbia
Canada

Jul 31, 2018

Philippe Le Billon is a professor at the University of British Columbia in the Department of Geography and the Liu Institute for Global Issues. He is also a member of the founding Board of Directors of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association. Philippe’s undergraduate degrees in Biology and Innovation paved the way for a Master’s in Business Administration from University of Pantheon Sorbonne, Paris I, and a D.Phil. in Geography from the University of Oxford. Philippe works on the environment, development, and security nexus, with a focus on the political economy resource development and the linkages between resources and conflict. As a professor, he teaches courses on political geography, resource governance, and environmental security, and he has worked for organizations such as the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Overseas Development Institute. He recently published Oil (Polity Press, 2017, 2nd ed., with Gavin Bridge) and Wars of Plunder: Conflicts, Profits and the Politics of Resources (Oxford University Press, 2013), among many other publications.

Philippe’s current work focuses on environmental defenders—namely, people from local communities, especially indigenous communities, who are trying to protect the environment and their communities in areas where there is conflict over land, natural resources, and the environment. Philippe says, “It’s important both locally and globally to recognize different community voices and to engage with those voices. They are trying to tell the world and resource companies about how they relate with these environments and move toward less exploitative forms of relation. This is also crucial for decolonization of both environmental knowledge and governance.” Philippe’s training in political ecology shapes the ways in which he sees connections between the materiality, geography, and governance of the environment in various places around the globe. His work synthesizes the ways in which concepts of environment and peace play out in various chains of exploitation, consumption, and regulation, and the possibilities for accountability and defense of the environment. He also focuses on the concept of reconstruction and the ways in which better understandings of the linkages between resource governance, commodity chains, and geographies of conflict can increase accountability for environmental damage and support peace.

Philippe also works on other topics such as climate change and fisheries. For example, he is currently mapping out initiatives to curtail fossil fuel supply as part of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase 'planetary security'. Philippe is seeking to better understand patterns of fisheries conflicts, the effectiveness of solutions that are being adopted (such as clearer rules and enforcement, or reducing bycatch of fish), and expose the hidden costs of industrialized fishing. Some of this work highlights the importance of environmental peacebuilding approaches.

Philippe joined the Association because it provides a place for environmental issues and peacebuilding to be in dialogue. It also is a space to discuss how to best act on those linkages and get practitioners, scholars, and decision-makers work together to further develop environmental peacebuilding ideas and practices. Philippe is looking forward to engaging with members of the Association from different backgrounds and fields for a better understanding how the world of environmental peacebuilding is evolving.