Guillaume Lestrelin

With an academic background in biology and ecology, I have progressively turned to the social sciences and, more particularly, human geography. At the same time, my work has evolved towards a greater integration of theories and methods from the social sciences in the research on environmental issues. After a first research training aimed at experimenting a biodiversity monitoring system in the grasslands of the Natural Regional Park of Queyras in France (undergraduate research training), the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD) has hosted my Master's research which analysed the long-term impacts of soil conservation measures on the vegetation cover in a northern province of Burkina Faso. Then, hired by IRD for a two-year research period, I have contributed to the international programme 'Managing Soil Erosion Consortium' by coordinating a study of the linkages between environmental policy, agrarian transition and soil erosion in the uplands of the Lao PDR. By combining a biophysical approach to soil erosion in a small watershed, surveys on recent livelihood change in two upland villages and a critical analysis of environmental discourses and policy at the local and national scales, the study has allowed for questioning the official discourse on land degradation in Laos and highlighting the way environmental policy threatens the sustainability of the upland livelihoods. These two years have led to the publication of a research report and a peer reviewed article. The quality of the work conducted has been recognized by the 2005 International Water Management Institute's 'Promising Young Scientist' award and the journal article published in 2007 has been cited as an important contribution to field of political ecology (see Jones 2008, in the journal 'Geography Compass'). This experience has been a starting point for my engagement in doctoral studies at the Geography Department of the University of Durham (United Kingdom). Defended last January (with 'minor corrections'), my PhD thesis proposes a double approach, biophysical and sociopolitical, to the agrarian transition in the Laotian uplands. It demonstrates that the initiation of the transition is partly linked to farmland degradation which is itself an indirect consequence of Laos' rural development and conservation policy. The thesis also shows how local socio-environmental change is shaped by: (i) social differentiation (between communities, households and individuals), (ii) individual aspirations influenced by the emergence of new economic opportunities and the integration of new sociocultural models, and (iii) the uneven application of public policy, compromised by the resistance of upland villagers and state agents.