Arnim Scheidel

Dr. Arnim Scheidel is a researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) specializing in Ecological Economics. His work focuses on environmental justice, ecological distribution conflicts, and the political ecology of resource extraction.

His research interests include:

• Environmental justice movements and conflicts globally
• Ecological distribution conflicts related to fossil fuels and land grabbing
• Conservation and protected areas' social impacts
• Forest restoration and sustainable recovery approaches
• Political economy of environmental conflicts

His publication record shows a consistent focus on environmental conflicts, with his highly cited 2020 paper Environmental conflicts and defenders: A global overview establishing him as a leading scholar in documenting and analyzing environmental justice struggles worldwide. Recent work examines the role of law in green grabbing, the intersection of conservation and justice, and knowledge integration for sustainable forest recovery.

Dr. Scheidel was a key investigator on the major European Commission-funded EnvJustice project (2016-2021) which developed the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas), a comprehensive global database of environmental conflicts. His research has been widely disseminated, with publications picked up by numerous news outlets, referenced in policy documents and Wikipedia pages, and shared extensively on social media platforms.

He completed his doctoral research in 2013 on rural development challenges related to the global land rush, establishing the foundation for his ongoing work on land politics and environmental conflicts.