Human dimensions of protected areas: a systematic review of the social-ecological effects of legal restrictions on local communities

Legal restrictions associated with protected areas can act as anthropogenic disturbances in social-ecological systems, altering relationships among communities, territories, and resources. This study examined how the scientific literature documents these effects by investigating their centrality as a research focus, the effects reported and the contextual conditions associated with their manifestation, and geographical variation in effect-category richness and composition. We conducted a systematic review following PRISMA guidelines, with searches in Web of Science and Scopus. We included 86 articles published between 1995 and 2025, covering 35 countries and 121 protected areas. Reported effects were organized into five categories through inductive content analysis. The most frequently recorded categories were Resistance to Conservation Rules (35.8%), Livelihood Impacts (25.7%), and Social and Institutional Conflicts (16.9%). Only 37.2% of studies investigated these effects as a primary objective; however, the likelihood of doing so increased significantly over time (OR = 1.71 per five-year increase; 95% CI = 1.05–2.81; p = 0.032). Effect-category richness did not differ between studies with primary versus secondary focus or among adequately sampled continents. Contextual synthesis indicated that effect manifestation was mainly associated with material dependence on resources, the cultural significance of restricted practices, and political-institutional governance conditions. These findings indicate that conservation restrictions should be understood as disturbances embedded in pre-existing social-ecological systems. Considering Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the results reinforce the importance of combining area-based conservation expansion with equitable governance, local participation, and attention to the distribution of conservation costs and benefits.