Agri-environment schemes (AES) are central to the conservation of Europe's farmland biodiversity. The UK Government's Public Service Agreement target seeks to reverse the decline of farmland birds in England by 2020 through the use of AES. The Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) scheme, introduced in 2005, is the first non-competitive, broad-uptake stewardship scheme designed to deliver simple but effective environmental management on farms throughout England.

Botanical capacity plays a fundamental role in solving the grand challenges of the next century, including climate change, sustainability, food security, preservation of ecosystem services, conservation of threatened species, and control of invasive species. Yet critical components of botanical education, research, and management are lacking across government, academic, and private sectors.

The prevention of soil erosion is one of the most essential requirements for sustainable agriculture in developing countries. In recent years it is widely recognized that more site-specific approaches are needed to assess variations in erosion susceptibility in order to select the most suitable land management methods for individual hillslope sections. This study quantifies the influence of different land management methods on soil erosion by modelling soil loss for individual soil-landscape units on a hillslope in Southern Uganda.

Freshwater ecosystems are warming globally from the direct effects of climate change on air temperature and hydrology and the indirect effects on near-stream vegetation. In fire-prone landscapes, vegetative change may be especially rapid and cause significant local stream temperature increases but the importance of these increases relative to broader changes associated with air temperature and hydrology are not well understood.

Degraded lands are common in human-influenced tropical semiarid areas, and the potential for C sequestration through rehabilitation of these areas is substantial. In this study, we investigated changes in ecosystem C stocks (ECS) after establishing exclosures on degraded communal grazing lands, and identified easily measurable biophysical and management-related factors that can be used to predict ECS restoration in the highlands of Tigray, Ethiopia. We selected replicated (n = 3) 5-, 10-, 15-, and 20-yr-old exclosures and paired each exclosure with an adjacent communal grazing land.

Organic and conventional farming practices differ in the use of several management strategies, including use of catch crops, green manure, and fertilization, which may influence soil properties, greenhouse gas emissions and productivity of agroecosystems. An 11-yr-old field experiment on a sandy loam soil in Denmark was used to compare several crop rotations with respect to a range of physical, chemical and biological characteristics related to carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) flows.

In recent years, infrastructure investments, especially construction of new roads and upgrading of existing ones, have accelerated in Turkey. Expropriation cases related to building plot and land have increased due to these investments. One subject causes conflict and leads to the prolongation of cases due to the misuse of building plot-land discrimination.

The incidence of natural disturbance in forests is increasing globally as a consequence of global warming. The concomitant large-scale transformation of landscapes can have profound social impacts and trigger political conflict that hampers resource management. This paper explores the link between landscape transformations and political conflict using the example of the bark beetle epidemic in Bavarian Forest National Park, Germany.

The various land management and planning policies that have been developed for the Tierra de Campos district of northwestern Spain over the past century have had major effects on wetland ecosystems of this area. To assist conservation planners in the future management of these habitats, this study outlines the changes that have occurred in these environments using data for the years 1900, 1956, 1984 and 2007. Multiple logistic regression models allowed the accurate projection of locations of wetlands that need to be restored or regenerated.

Why do many smallholder farmers fail to adopt improved land management practices which can improve yields and incomes? The reason is not always because these practices are uneconomical but sometimes it is because resource poverty prevents farmers from taking advantage of yield and income enhancing agricultural practices. In this study we examine the relative merits of using a carbon payment scheme compared to a subsidy policy to help reduce the cost of specific land management practices with productivity and ecosystem benefits such as carbon sequestration.