With increasing land-use pressures on landscapes, it is critical to improve their governance while being inclusive of those living there. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage sites and Biosphere Reserves play a crucial role in protecting both social and ecological values in designated landscapes, making them interesting sites for action-oriented research. The designation and maintenance of these protected areas can form and reshape the place-based identities and senses of belonging held by local actors and consequently enable or restrain the process of mobilizing action for sustainability. In this review, we build on recent literature and our own experiences of research in UNESCO sites to propose place-based identities and senses of belonging as potential deep leverage points that may be acted on to achieve transformative action-oriented research for sustainability while also reflecting on our own positionality before and throughout the research process.