GA (George) Iordachescu, PhD

Dr. George Iordachescu is a political ecologist researching the politics of conservation and just environmental futures. George has a background in social anthropology (MA), sociology (BA) and history (BA), and his work spans the disciplines of human geography, green criminology and conservation social sciences. His research interests include the governance of nature protection in the European Union, human-bear conflicts & coexistence, environmental crime and environmental politics in Europe.

George is currently leading as a Principal Investigator the ERC-funded project GreenFrontier: Politics of Conservation and Unequal Ecological Exchange in European Peripheries (2024-2029), that investigates the development of conservation frontiers and environmental justice issues associated with strict protection of nature in marginal mountain areas of Europe.

His previous research looked at rewilding conflicts in several European settings as part of the wildE Project.  He held a postdoctoral position at Sheffield University where he researched the hidden dynamics of illegal wildlife trade in European species as part of the ESRC-funded Beastly Business project (2021-2023). George also worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the ERC-funded BIOSEC Project where he researched the impact of EU regulations on criminalization and securitization of illegal logging and timber trade in the Carpathian Mountains (2019-2020). He gained his PhD in 2019 from the IMT School of Advanced Studies (Lucca, Italy) with a dissertation about the development of strict protection of wild nature in eastern Europe and its impact on local livelihoods.