Relational Sustainability and Human Ecology: An Introduction

• Versanudin Hekmatyar

  Politeknik Kesejahteraan Sosial Bandung

  Author

  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7313-4294

This introductory article outlines the intellectual foundation of Dharmadhikara: Journal of Human Ecology, launched amid escalating socio-ecological crises that link environmental degradation, climate change, institutional fragmentation, and social inequality. Grounded in the person-in-environment paradigm, it frames human ecology as both an analytical lens and an ethical project integrating sustainability, social justice, and moral responsibility. The five inaugural articles collectively operationalize this agenda: examining payment for environmental services as justice-oriented environmental governance, emotional wellbeing of older adults in institutional care, ESG-aligned CSR as an everyday inclusion and psychosocial intervention for Deaf youth, community-based economic empowerment as a relational socio-ecological process, and flood contingency planning as participatory, multi-level disaster governance. Together, they define the journal’s identity as interdisciplinary, ethically engaged, grounded in Global South realities, and committed to bridging theory, policy, and practice in pursuit of relational sustainability.

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