Previous sustainable tourism research has called for the promotion of community-based tourism as a means of achieving sustainable development goals. Such communitybased development has been noted as essential for sustainable practices because of its capacity to benefit local populations while reducing tourism's negative consequences. Nonetheless, some researchers have warned that community-based tourism, by itself, does not necessarily lead to sustainable practices. This study examines local social interactional elements necessary for the achievement of sustainable tourism practices. Such practices are attainable when certain attitudinal, organizational and/or behavioral conditions are present within a community. Using a case study methodology, this article examines the interactional elements by which residents of La Fortuna, Costa Rica, engaged in sustainable tourism practices. The study was based on the theoretical notion of the community field. It used key informant interviews and participant observation. The study shows how economic, social and environmentally sustainable practices were made possible through community agency, the construction of local relationships that increase the adaptive capacity of people within a common locality. Key factors found to enable community agency are strong intra-and extra-community interactions, open communication, participation, distributive justice and tolerance.

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The purpose of this research was to examine the extent to which social support and wider community perceptions/engagements among adolescents are connected with well-being. We compared adolescents in two different societal contexts, Florida in the United States and County Offaly, in Ireland, and posed the questions: What are the key predictors of subjective well-being from the various sources of support, and to what extent does the impact of social support on well-being vary across these two societies? Questionnaires were completed and returned for 607 respondents (322 in the Irish study and 285 in the Florida study). A variety of scales were adopted and designed to operationalize our key concepts of: Adolescent well-being, social support, school satisfaction, neighbourhood quality of life and community/voluntary participation. Our results indicate that informal social support and school satisfaction were the strongest predictors of youth well-being in both locations, despite some differences in terms of individual influencing variables. From informal sources, emotional support from friends and advice/concrete/esteem support from parents emerged as important predictive dimensions. Liking school, perceptions of doing well in school were the main predictors of school satisfaction in Ireland while, in Florida, student camaraderie and the experience of bullying emerged as significant.