Pierre-Yves Le Meur is an anthropologist, research director at IRD (French Research Institute for Development), member of the GRED research unit (Governance Risk Environment Development), Montpellier. He has been working extensively on the politics of belonging and natural resources in West Africa, and since more than 10 years in the Pacific. In New Caledonia where he was based 8 years (2008-2015) he has carried out different research projects on the interplay of local and corporate governance in the mining sector, the land issue and the land-mine nexus, and the interactions between mining, environment and politics. He has run for IRD the expert panel commissioned by the French Polynesian and French Governments to review the prospects of deep-sea mineral resources in French Polynesia and outline a policy framework in this domain. He is a founding member of the Pacific Centre for Social Responsibility and Natural Resources (PacSen) currently hosted by the Pacific Community (SPC). He is preparing with Colin Filer (ANU Canberra) a book on “Large-scale mines and local-level politics in Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia” (forthcoming, ANU Press).