Environmental stewardship refers to the responsible use, protection and improvement of natural resources. It involves family, personal and community efforts to preserve and enhance the health of local natural resources. Local environmental stewardship is achieved through actions and practices like maintaining or establishing community gardens, removing unwanted species and cleaning up a public area, monitoring the wildlife Our site habitat, or participating in watershed cleanup events. It can also involve the community in the planning of policies and making decisions that affect the environment on a local or state level. The literature on stewardship in the academic world has led to a variety of insights about underlying factors that influence its outcomes. These include frameworks of sustainable livelihoods CBNRM, adaptive co-management and concepts of a ecological and socio-ecological system as well as ecological sustainability.

In general, stewardship initiatives are driven by the desire to accomplish the goals of social or environmental sustainability (e.g. increasing biodiversity, restoring habitats degraded conserving wildlife, or preserving fishing catches). The process of setting goals often involves considering the desired benefits, costs and risks of stewardship initiatives. Economic motives may include the desire to avoid sanctions or external rewards, for example market premiums and financial incentives for environmentally sustainable goods, or fines for violating regulated resource usage regulations (Wunder 2007).).

A wider view of environmental stewardship includes the concept of civic action which is a kind of environmental stewardship. Individuals or communities can take action to improve environmental quality through a series of reflection, practice and research. This cycle helps them master the skills, knowledge, and values that enable them to take part in environmental conservation as an integral part of their lives (Stern 2000 link offsite).