The disproportions of Russia’s spatial development (shrinkage of the developed space, polarization of the settlement system, distortion of the support frame) are challenges for sustainable development and for ensuring national security. In such conditions, local territories are most vulnerable, which, if located far from the centers of resource attraction, have limited opportunities to respond to current challenges. In turn, it is at the local level that the practical implementation of the goals and objectives of sustainable development is carried out, which ultimately determines the situation at higher levels. The ecosystem approach, which assigns a significant role in this process to the participants of the territorial ecosystem and their interaction with each other and with the external environment, seems promising for the study of the sustainable development of local territories. The aim of the review is to analyze scientific discourse on the sustainable development of local territories in the context of an ecosystem approach. The work uses general scientific methods of critical analysis, comparison, generalization, grouping and classification. The information base includes Russian and foreign scientific literature on the sustainable development of individual territorial units and the ecosystem approach, as well as international and Russian regulatory documents in the field of sustainable development. The article discusses terminological features of the concepts “sustainable development”, “ecosystem approach” and “local sustainable development territories”. We reveal the intersections of the concept of sustainable development and the ecosystem approach, and the possibility of their logical combination into a single conceptual framework in relation to local territories. On the basis of generalization and systematization of scientific literature, we define the terms “sustainable development of local territories” and “ecosystem for the sustainable development of local territories”, and identify key structural and functional elements of the ecosystem for the sustainable development of local territories
Keywords
sustainable development, local territories, ecosystem approach, ecosystem for the sustainable development