H. Herman, Marno Wance, Ummu Syahidah
This study aims to analyze the literature related to ecotourism, biodiversity, and environmental policies using a bibliometric approach, employing the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method. This approach enables the identification of research trends, patterns of collaboration among authors, and the development of key topics in ecotourism and environmental policy research published between 2015 and 2025. The article selection process began with identifying records from various databases, followed by screening and evaluating the articles' eligibility, ultimately resulting in 227 relevant articles for further analysis. As for the research findings, they are (1) Annual publications show a significant increase in the number of publications in 2024, with 36 articles, compared to 34 articles in 2023 and 2021. Factors contributing to the high global attention on sustainability and natural resource management in the context of tourism; (2) Contribution by country, placing China as the highest contributor with 56 articles, followed by Indonesia and India with 33 articles each; (3) The field of study is finding that Environmental Science and Social Science dominate the research area, while environmental policy and local community participation are the main topics frequently discussed; (4) The network aspect of research trends with research issues is the research finding that ecotourism development involves the tourism sector, environmental sustainability, and the empowerment of local communities; and (5) The collaboration network aspect is finding research relationships between natural conservation sustainability, tourism sector management, and the empowerment and involvement of local communities. As for policy recommendations, they are (1) Environmental and ecotourism management policies that can integrate environmental conservation with profitable tourism sectors and (2) Cross-country collaboration with interdisciplinary fields of science to create a role for local communities in the management and benefit from ecotourism destinations. © 2025 The authors. This article is published by IIETA and is licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license
Department of Public Administration, State University of Makassar, Makassar, 90222, Indonesia; Department of Government Science, University of Pattimura, Ambon, 97324, Indonesia; Department of Accounting, State Polytechnic of Ambon, Ambon, 97324, Indonesia
