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Examines the concept of community as a means of implementing renewable natural resource management. Decades of exclusionary conservation policies failed to protect resources & have had undesirable distributive effects. The poor populations that have most needed the resources have been marginalized & disempowered. A central role for community in conservation may improve the opportunities of poor rural communities. Presently, over 50 countries have reported attempts to form partnerships with local communities in conservation & have made new attempts to distribute the benefits of environmental management within the community. Conceptualizations of community in conservation & resource management are explored, including community as a small spatial unit, as a homogeneous social structure, & as shared norms. Implementation of community-based natural resource management policies will require an understanding of the community, including the multiplicity of actors & interests, institutions & processes, & the production of community. Careful images of community are required to understand its internal differences & processes, its interactions with the outside world, & the institutions that structure their interactions. L. A. Hoffman