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Sacred forests are biocultural landscapes deeply rooted in centuries-old traditions of spiritual veneration. These sacred sites, including shrines, temple forests churches and graveyards, have historically been significant reservoirs of traditional resource management practices underpinned by spiritual reverence. However, despite their cultural and ecological importance, the cultural ecosystem services inherent to these sacred forests remain unexplored, particularly in urban settings.

This study focused on six sacred sites within Kanazawa City, Japan, using a meticulous face-to-face survey with 342 participants. We collected data on the extent of forest utilisation, the breadth of activities engaged in by visitors and their holistic appraisal of the rendered cultural ecosystem services. The findings illustrate the multifaceted benefits of urban sacred forests, encompassing participation in religious ceremonies, cultural events and festivals, complemented by educational programming that elucidates the historical and traditional underpinnings of the shrines and their surrounding communities.

It has been observed that urban forests have a crucial role in providing spiritual and communal connectivity, preserving traditional heritage, offering vital aesthetic values as green spaces and making visitors connected with nature while they are in the urban landscape. However, a concerning trend has emerged, as the younger demographic appears to lack interest in participating in the stewardship and cultural activities associated with these biocultural landscapes. Community engagement strategies must be strengthened, conservation measures should be implemented and cultural awareness programs need to be established to ensure the perpetuation and appreciation of these valuable urban sacred forests.

This study provides original perspectives on the measurable cultural ecosystem services and intangible values associated with urban sacred forests using the sacred forests in Kanazawa City, Japan. Our research illuminates the various advantages that visitors derive by examining the intersection of spiritual traditions, resource management practices and cultural significance, which has been relatively unexplored. The present study provides a significant basis for establishing initiatives that seek to promote the cultivation of respect and responsibility towards urban sacred forests.

Nature’s contribution to people (NCP) is a concept that specifically recognizes the relationship of “humans and the natural environment” similarly to concepts of “cultural landscapes” and consistent to “heritage.” These concepts are essential in incorporating a diverse range of stakeholders from different scales, which is important for policy and practice. The paper aims to review the existing peer-reviewed papers in the Philippines, using meta-analysis and systematic review. We addressed the significant interlinkages that help facilitate the transition and strengthen the correlation of cultural ecosystem services (CES) and NCP in a cultural landscape setting.

To distinguish and support claims for NCP from CES, we conducted a meta-analysis and systematic review based on the 30-existing peer-reviewed articles on the Philippine cultural ES in the lenses of “heritage” and “cultural landscape.”

The results generated a few numbers of the Philippine CES studies, yet it has increased cumulatively year by year consistent with previous international studies. We found that most studies are focused on topics associated with “Indigenous People, Ancestral Domains, Protected Areas/Landscapes, and Indigenous and Local Knowledge” on the linkages concurrently distinguishing NCP to CES, and may signify stronger economic valuation in uncovering the sociocultural dimensions of these scholarships through its relational values in the lenses of cultural landscape and heritage.

The authors limited the search to peer-reviewed journal articles published from online databases and did not consider Philippine University based and local publications to have a systematic review. This is to prevent underestimating the vast amount of CES literature and avoid gray literature that is not peer-reviewed; hence, being able to analyze and produce focused, yet, credible data.

In a generalizing perspective, NCP 1, 6, 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17 and 18 have the most realized positive correlations of the reporting categories to the Philippine CES studies. The majority of the context-specific perspective NCP has strong conceptual claims in the existing Philippine CES literature through the studies’ variables aside from NCP 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 11 that are still mostly in the nature of generalizing perspective.

In conclusion, our results imply that the previous and existing CES studies in the Philippines harbor more attributes presented by the NCP reporting categories. This is deemed more suitable, and may signify stronger economic valuation in uncovering the sociocultural dimensions of these scholarships through its relational values in the lenses of cultural landscape and heritage.

This study aims to read ritual performances, built forms and cultural undertones of traumatic migration in the settlements of people at the periphery of mainstream history at Mattancherry in Kochi, India. Interactions between their culture, faith, location, ethnicity and community enterprise are explored. This study is essential in the context of negative social perceptions of internal migration and migrants.

The methodology is ethnography and includes interdisciplinary fieldwork of transect walks, participant observations, unstructured interviews and architectural documentation. Secondary references were community publications and scholarly journals.

Constant resilient rebuilding was possible through shared identity and community enterprise. Community temples, monastic institutions, volunteer groups and emerging high-net-worth individuals contributed to nurturing this identity. The temple rituals encouraged an egalitarian outlook. Throughout the settlement’s existence, the centrality of the temple and its religious activities remained constant. Community cohesion and endogamous practices create a cultural island distinct from the general population. Community enterprise also meant contribution to prosperity as productive citizens in the region and beyond.

Religion and shared history-based ethnic community enterprise for survival and prosperity postmigration are observed in this settlement. The conducive entrepreneurial atmosphere is set in its historical, cultural and religious context. This study can, therefore, provide insights for policymakers and academia about the interactions between culture, faith and history during the entrepreneurial process. The cultural context is explored as a backdrop of community enterprise posttraumatic migration, informing societal perceptions about migration and migrants.

This paper provides a comprehensive exploration of the historical evolution and contemporary transformations inherent in cultural landscapes, framed within the narrative of a cultural odyssey. The concept of cultural landscapes extends beyond the physical arrangement of landscape elements, encompassing social and cultural customs and economic dynamics in both tangible and intangible aspects of heritage. Instead of being confined to a linear evolutionary model of sacred-historic landscape development, these sites are understood to exist across different historical periods such as ancient, medieval, etc. reflecting their multifaceted nature.

The paper utilizes a thorough and systematic examination of existing literature, covering several disciplines such as cultural studies, anthropology and environmental studies. The methodology prioritizes a holistic approach by including succinct discussion of many locations to improve the analysis. The collection of qualitative data on the cultural importance of eco-heritage involves conducting participant observations and focus group talks to capture a diverse range of perspectives.

The paper highlights the importance of preserving and interpreting cultural landscapes as living, evolving entities. By recognizing diverse layers of history and cultural significance within these sites, research suggests strategies for integrating sustainable practices in the management of cultural landscapes.

This work makes a substantial contribution to the academic field by examining the intersection where cultural heritage and eco-transformations converge. By embarking on a cultural odyssey, the paper not only charts the progress of societies but also sheds light on the transformative impact of eco-heritage interactions. The novel perspectives offer a new framework for scholars, policymakers and practitioners to analyze and value the complex interrelationships between cultural legacy and ecological changes.

With rapid urbanization, cities are facing various ecological and environmental problems. Living in harmony with nature is more important than ever. This paper aims to evaluate the ecosystem and ecological features of Azheke village, a key component of the Hani Rice Terraces World Cultural Heritage in China. The focus is on exploring effective ways to improve the relationship between humans and the natural environment through urban design in order to create a livable and sustainable city that can promote the development of sustainable smart urban ecology design.

This study conducted a systematic literature review to answer the following research questions: (1) How does Azheke design achieve harmony between humans and nature? (2) What are the effective approaches to improve the relationship between humans and nature within urban ecosystems? (3) How can urban design learn and integrate from Azheke’s ecological features to improve the relationship between humans and nature?

Azheke sustains long-term human-nature harmony through traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and efficient natural resource use. By incorporating biophilic design and nature-based solutions from Azheke, along with biodiversity-friendly urban planning, we can boost urban ecosystem health and create unique Azheke-inspired urban designs.

This research primarily focuses on the human-nature relationship, exploring design strategies based on biodiversity without delving into the interactions between other components of urban ecosystems, such as social-cultural and economic components.

This paper provides a new perspective and strategies for developing sustainable and smart urban ecology design. These findings can provide theoretical references for urban planners, designers and decision-makers.

An emerging research stream focuses on the place-based ecosystems where artificial intelligence (AI) innovations emerge and develop. This literature builds on the contextual turn in management research and, specifically, work on entrepreneurial ecosystems. However, as a nascent research area, the literature on AI and entrepreneurial ecosystems is fragmented across academic and practitioner boundaries and unconnected disciplines because of disparate and ill-defined concepts. As a result, the literature is disorganized and its main insights are latent. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize research on AI ecosystems and identify the main insights.

We first consolidate research on the “where” of AI innovation through a scoping review. To address the fragmentation in the literature and understand how entrepreneurial ecosystems are associated with AI innovation, we then use content analysis to explore the literature.

We identify the main characteristics of the AI and ecosystems literature and the key dimensions of “AI entrepreneurial ecosystems”: the local actors and factors in geographic territories that are coordinated to support the creation and development of AI technologies. We clarify the relationships among AI technologies and ecosystem dimensions and uncover the latent themes and underlying structure of research on AI entrepreneurial ecosystems.

We increase conceptual precision by introducing and defining an umbrella concept—AI entrepreneurial ecosystem—and propose a research agenda to spur further insights. Our analysis contributes to research at the intersection of management, information systems, and entrepreneurship and creates actionable insights for practitioners influenced by the geographic agglomeration of AI innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to model a process for moving toward sustainable ecosystem service decisions in a Coastal Biodiversity and discuss the directions of the process for decision-makers to apply in ocean ecosystem services.

After the development of theoretical approaches to understand their prospects for the future development of ecosystem services, the authors worked on a process for developing factors for sustainable decision-making. It uses the Delphi method to develop all the factors supported by six dimensions in two specific moments: deductive-inductive and inductive-deductive.

This process of modeling the factors expands the possibility of adaptive governance to make prior and subsequent decisions using factors related to dimensions, stakeholders and benefits, risks, opportunities and costs.

Considering the limitations, future studies could use another database to widen the view in terms of the studies, factors, dimensions and other additional information to maintain the evolution of this process in ocean ecosystem services decision-making. Another limitation arose in the number of projects and experts defining the factors. This may prevent the opportunity to have more impact in terms of future decisions if more sources are used in the market. In addition, time and the access to experts during this modeling process demonstrate a limitation, as does the time for feedback.

This set of factors developed for adaptive governance decision-making can be applied to develop a prior alignment of stakeholder interests with sustainable practices.

This set of factors developed with the intervention of experts reinforces the importance of sustainable collective decisions on ocean ecosystem services. This is a joint approach with participants in the NextOcean project, sponsored by the European Commissions (EC)’s Horizon 2020 program. An Earth Observation-based Consortia aims to create sustainable value for Space, Land and Oceans.

This modeling process generated dimensions and factors to support adaptive governance stakeholders in making sustainable decisions in a coastal biodiversity zone.

This interdisciplinary study re-evaluates the Sungai Melaka flood mitigation project’s impact on community success in Malaysia’s UNESCO World Heritage site, broadening the definition of success considering historical and cultural significance. This study aims to revisit success metrics, focusing on the project’s influence on people’s interactions, cultural well-being, social cohesion and heritage preservation.

This study explored visitors’ reviews of their experience visiting Sungai Melaka in several data collection stages. The first data collection involved a Web survey posted on Facebook to capture diverse perspectives of the population and grasp the core strand of knowledge to focus on the second data collection, the questionnaire. The final stage involved interviews to generate rich qualitative data.

The findings of this study revealed that the impact exceeded tangible outcomes, as the project impacted people’s interactions and practices. This research assesses cultural benefits, incorporating these indicators into evaluating cultural ecosystem services by capturing local visitors’ and communities’ perceptions, preferences and behaviours. The findings found that other project success attributes include identities, capabilities and experience, further defining learning, health, economics, connection to nature and symbolism.

This research explores the meaning of project success beyond the traditional metrics by capturing success from the users’ perspectives and people’s interaction and their impact on culture and well-being. The cultural ecosystem services framework used in this study is applied to explore the interactions between people and the facility and its effect on the people.

The present study addresses the literature gap on cultural linkages, traditions, cultural recognition and the perceived benefits of consumers in the orange economy. The article focuses on analyzing the impact of traditions and cultural linkages on the relationship between cultural recognition and the perceived benefits of consumers.

The empirical study is conducted on a sample of 393 consumers from the city of Arequipa, Peru utilizing structural equation modeling (SEM) with Smart PLS software.

The research results demonstrate that traditions and cultural ties are important factors that entrepreneurs must consider in the production and marketing process to enhance the benefits perceived by consumers by providing cultural identity within the products.

The study provides theoretical implications that fill the existing gap in understanding the relationship between cultural recognition and perceived benefits. Additionally, it offers practical implications for the development of the cultural ecosystem, involving artisans, artists, cultural managers, entrepreneurs, businessmen, government authorities, non-governmental organizations and international organizations.

The paper aims to provide a decision-support model to ensure a proper use of the limited resources, financial and not, for the enhancement of the cultural heritage and comprehensive development of small towns from sustainable perspective.

The assessment model is set up using a multi-criteria method that combines elements of linear planning with a performance indicators system that may represent the complexity of the territory’s cultural identity as a result of existing cultural-historical assets.

The model reliability is tested in a case study in a Municipality in southern Italy. The case study’s findings highlight the advantages for the public/private operators, who can consciously choose which preservation and restoration projects to fund while taking into account the effects those decisions will have on the economic, social and environmental context of reference.

Due to the suggested operational approach and the selection of variables for accounting economic, social and environmental impacts by the renewal project, the research findings may not be generalizable. Therefore, it is recommended that researchers look into the suggested theories in more detail.

The study offers implications for designing a user-friendly tool to help decision-making processes from a private–public viewpoint in a reasonable allocation of financial resources among investments for cultural property asset enhancement.

The suggested operational approach provides a reliable information apparatus to depict the decision-making process under small-town development in accordance with sustainability dimensions.