Sustainability Challenges in Community-Based Natural Resource Conservation, Regeneration, and Management

Dear Colleagues,

For centuries, farmers and their (local, indigenous) communities have been the custodians of the natural resource base on which they depend; that includes cultivated and uncultivated plants, domesticated and wild animals, land, trees, and water. Women play key roles in the conservation, regeneration, and sustainable management of natural resources. Science-supported community-based natural resource management has its origins in the 1990s. It was inspired, among others, by Zimbabwe's Community Areas Management Program For Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE), which engaged people living with wildlife to become beneficiaries of the sustainable use of wildlife in their areas; by the research of Elinor Ostrom and colleagues on the governance of the commons; and by community-based biodiversity management, such as through community seed banks (Vernooy et al. 2015).

However, in recent times, community-based conservation, regeneration, and natural resource management practices have been affected by socio-economic, environmental, and political changes and challenges. These include the commoditization of agriculture; the degradation of the natural resource base, pollution, and biodiversity loss; conflict, displacement and war; the diminishing interest of youth in farming and, in some areas, the feminization of agriculture; the globalization of markets; and rural to urban migration. The impact of climate change is putting additional stress and uncertainty on community-based practices, leading to questions about their sustainability. 

The purpose of this Special Issue is to document and analyze how best to address the sustainability challenge of community-based natural resource conservation, regeneration, and management in the light of challenging conditions and negative trends. How is the science of community-based natural resource conservation, regeneration, and management responding to these crises?

Of particular interest are inspiring cases that address one or more of the sustainability dimensions: economic, environmental, organizational, and political. In particular, we are looking for original research using novel methods, practices, technologies, and tools that:

• Support inclusive, fair, and equitable access and benefit-sharing practices of conservation, regeneration, and sustainable use;
• Respect, build on, and enrich the bio-cultural heritage of natural resource conservation, regeneration, and management of local/indigenous communities;
• Explore transformative co-management agreements to protect, restore, and sustainably use the natural resource base;
• Engage and incentivize youth to take on natural resource custodianship and entrepreneurship;
• Improve the quality of natural resource base assessments, monitoring, and analysis of data and trends.
• Create novel opportunities for nature-positive value addition activities to nature-based products and services;
• Bring about policy and legal change in support of community-based natural resource conservation, regeneration, and sustainable management.

Research from the global north and global south is welcome. 

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Ronnie Vernooy
Dr. Yiching Song
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• agrobiodiversity
• bio-cultural heritage
• community-based natural resource management
• conservation
• regeneration
• sustainability