How can natural resource dependent social enterprises facilitate community sustainability? Insights from fishery and forestry cases in Newfoundland and Labrador

Islam, Jannatul (2017) How can natural resource dependent social enterprises facilitate community sustainability? Insights from fishery and forestry cases in Newfoundland and Labrador. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Community development is often natural resource dependent, particularly in rural regions, but access to natural resources is often decided and prioritized by access to capital, rather than adjacency and necessity for nearby communities. I argue that social enterprises are the best collaborative mechanism to sustain community rights to natural resources and increase community residents’ ability to serve community development purposes through their use of these resources. Social enterprises based on social capital and for social welfare purposes can be characterised as innovative sources of social value-creation as they alleviate social problems and catalyze social transformation. However, there is a lack of scholarship on the relationship between natural resources and social enterprises. This research, through comparative case studies, will study the concept and role that natural resource-based social enterprises play in facilitating rural community development in the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery and forestry sectors, with particular focus on case studies from the rural region of the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. The conclusion covers the problems and prospects of the cases of natural resource dependent social enterprises and makes recommendations aimed at minimizing the effects of problems and facilitating the prospects.

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