Natural resource-based communities are often theoretically assumed to be vulnerable to the negative effects of environmental and social change. Such communities are also seen as being especially vulnerable to risks and disasters. Disaster research perspectives echo this in their emphasis on environmental and social vulnerability. Also, theories of risk largely fail to illuminate comunity level experiences. To address this gap, a community-based approach is advanced that incorporates vulnerability, risk percaption, and the capacity for local action in a frameword forundertstanding comunity response to risk. Th intersection of an interactional theory of comunity and perspectives from risk and disaster research is explored in the context of natural resource-based communiies