Community, Natural Resources, and Sustainability: Overview of an Interdisciplinary and International Literature

Abstract

The Special Issue Community, Natural Resources, and Sustainability seeks to engage in an interdisciplinary and international dialogue on the interrelationships of society, natural resources, and sustainability at the community level. In addition to introducing the twelve research articles published in this collection, we provide an overview of the existing literature on community and natural resource management, mainly through a review of previous reviews and a bibliometric analysis. While this literature is dominated by studies on various aspects of community-based natural resource management, the present Special Issue showcases multiple thematic areas of research that collectively contribute to a more complete understanding of the community-resources-sustainability linkages. Our review also pinpoints important gaps in existing meta-analyses and bibliometric analyses. Promising directions for future research are highlighted.

The Analysis of Rice Commodity Procurement Sustainability in Pasar Induk Cikurubuk, Tasikmalaya, West Java

“…Therefore, efforts to maintain good communication and relationships between traders and consumers need to be fostered and both through group activities and existing trader forums (paguyuban). According to Qin et al (2020), conflicts of interest in resource management are part of the dynamics of community life. This can occur because existing resources are understood to be common property.…”

Exploring the Main Determinants of National Park Community Management: Evidence from Bibliometric Analysis

“…To explore major topics relevant to NP communities, we generated a co-occurrence map of themes. Additionally, we used Microsoft Excel 2016 for a descriptive analysis of the number of articles, primary sources of publications, and countries represented in the database [26].…”

“…The resource utilization methods and conservation strategies of NP communities play a decisive role in their relationship to natural resources [26]. In some cases, limited resource access may force residents to resort to illegal practices, such as mining [107], poaching, agricultural encroachment, fishing, hunting, logging, and gathering, to sustain their livelihoods [16,85,101].…”

“…Taking natural resources as an example, communities that heavily rely on natural resources may hinder NP development, trigger environmental degradation, and even lead to disorder in the local social order. There is a clear contradiction between resource dependence and the development of rural areas near NPs [26]. Strict conservation policies and regulations of NPs have not only altered the local social structure and environmental patterns [27,37,81,113], but have also affected the income distribution among community residents, further intensifying competition for limited natural resources.…”

“…Bibliometric reviews are often used to illuminate general patterns in academic literature [26]. Bibliometric or quantitative analyses of scientific publications are commonly used to examine the development trends in various research fields [27,28].…”