Resilience pathways through community- based forest management for navigating the triple planetary crisis

• CBFM supports social, economic, ecological and disaster resilience through many pathways. • This is important in Asia and Africa, where communities face acute climate and environmental vulnerabilities. • Social capital, local knowledge, and institutional flexibility are key drivers of resilience under CBFM. • Community-led efforts in climate action remain under recognized in global environmental policies. • Adaptive, inclusive governance is essential to enhance CBFM’s role in resilience and sustainability. Rural communities and ecosystems are interlinked parts of social ecological systems. However, these relationships are witnessing changes because of biodiversity loss, pollution and climate change. Ecosystems and the human communities that rely on them are both sensitive and resilient to change. There is a need to understand the autonomous processes involved in complex change, including resilience and adaptive capacity in response to external shocks. Taking Community Based Forest Management (CBFM) as a case, in this study we reviewed empirical research with the dual aims of understanding the state of literature about resilience in CBFM and synthesizing findings about how CBFM produces social, economic, ecological and disaster resilience. The review process involved systematic selection and screening of articles based on clear criteria and a defined review protocol. The 51 selected articles were analysed for changing themes over time, geographical coverage and pathways to resilience. This study demonstrates how CBFM fosters resilience through diverse social, economic, ecological, and disaster resilience pathways that are intertwined and enabled by the close coupling of people and nature in CBFM. The local activity in CBFM contributes to achieving broader global goals of sustainable forest management and adaptation to climate change. The study concludes that CBFM needs to be viewed from the perspective that it enables resilience for communities and ecosystems in changing contexts. Despite many external factors that hinder its implementation, CBFM remains one of the best strategies for enabling the adaptive capacity of forest dependent communities. This contribution of CBFM should be better recognized and should be supported by building on existing resilience processes and attending to social justice.