The grassland biome of the southern Drakensberg region of South Africa is characterized by a relatively rich floral biodiversity, including a high level of endemics.  Land use in the area was traditionally dominated by livestock ranching based mainly on indigenous grassland that conserved biodiversity to some degree.  Currently however, market demands and risk factors are shifting land use in the area to a matrix of beef, cropping, dairy and particularly, towards plantation forestry.  A spreadsheet model was constructed to understand how expected land use conversion will likely influence th

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is a voluntary set-aside program in the United States designed to amelioratesoil erosion, control crop overproduction, enhance water quality, and provide wildlife habitat by replacing crops with other forms of land cover. Because CRP includes primarily grass habitats, it has great potential to benefitdeclining North American grassland bird populations. We looked at the change in national and state population trends of grassland birds and related changes to cover-specific CRP variables (previous research grouped all CRP practices).

This paper takes the move from the uncertainty surrounding ecosystem thresholds and addresses the issue of ecosystem-state assessment by means of ecological integrity indicators and ‘ecological risk‘. The concept of ‘ecological risk‘ gives a measure of the likelihood of ecosystem failure to provide the level of natural ecological goods and services expected/desired by human societies. As a consequence of human pressures (use of resources and discharge into the environment), ecosystem thresholds can be breached thus resulting in major threats to human health, safety and well-being.

Climate warming during the past century has imposed recession of glaciers and perennial snow/ice patches along the entire Swedish Scandes. On the newly exposed forefields, subfossil wood remnants are being outwashed from beneath ice and snow bodies. In Scandinavia, this kind of detrital wood is a previously unused source of postglacial vegetation and climate history. The present study reports radiocarbon dates of a set of 78 wood samples, retrieved from three main sites, high above modern treelines and stretching along the Swedish Scandes.

Sacred sites are of conservation value because of their spiritual meaning, as cultural heritage and as remnants of
near-natural biotopes in landscapes strongly transformed by man. The vegetation of sacred sites in Morocco was
studied recently. Information about their number, spatial pattern or relief position is fragmentary. However, these
parameters are important to evaluate their role as refuge for organisms and their representativeness of potential
natural vegetation.

Spatial planning is connected with speculations in real estate market, which deepens the process of urban sprawl. Adequate land management supporting free market – both investment decision of businesses and location decisions of households – is necessary if amorphous city growth is to be prevented. A change, or even information about change in the local plan determines decisions in the real estate market. On the basis of the studies conducted it can be said that the factor causing the greatest value increment is the possibility of development.

Operationalization of the ecosystem services (ES) concept for improved natural resource management and decision support
cannot, thus far, be rated as satisfactory. Participation of stakeholders is still a major methodical and conceptual challenge for implementing ES. Therefore, we conducted an online survey and a literature analysis to identify benefits and challenges of the
application of ES in participatory processes. The results show that the purpose of stakeholder engagement is very diverse as a

In the last decades, rural landscape in Europe has evolved from an agricultural by-product to an important
public good. This development creates not only new challenges to farming practices, it also makes
participation and public involvement an indispensable tool for sustainable landscape planning. This is
especially true for many European mountain regions, where tourism represents an important source of
income and conflicts between locals’ and tourists’ interests should be avoided. In our study, we analyze

Understanding and measuring functional connectivity for animals with habitats that have been fragmented by human
activity requires that the biology and movement of the species be considered. We used least cost paths in GIS
to test hypotheses regarding how different species of longhorned beetles likely connect habitats with dispersal.
We predicted that there would be differences in the functional connectivity of landscapes depending on species
larval niche breadth, adult feeding habits, and the potential for use of non-forest habitats. For the species with very

The field for application of biomass is rising. The demand for food and feeding stuff rises while at the same time energy, chemicals and other materials also need to be produced from biomass because of decreasing fossil resources. However, the biorefinery ideas and concepts can help to use the limited renewable raw materials more efficiently than today. With biorefineries, valuable products, such as platform chemicals, can be produced from agricultural feedstock, which can subsequently be further processed into a variety of substances by the chemical industry.

Population growth and rapid urbanization growth in recent decades have not only led to unbalanced physical expansion of cities, but also contributed to growth and development of cities. The city of Sari in Iran, like many other cities is not immune from these changes. The city population has increased by 16 times over the last fifty years. Therefore, the increasing population growth has created uncontrolled physical expansion in the city.

Cities are not socially homogenous, but divided into socially and structurally differentiated sub-units. Likewise, the individuals of a community, city or neighbourhood present specific behavioural patterns and uses with respect to their public green areas. This premise has led us to explore the question of how the perceptions, uses, and behaviours of people from different countries, cultures, and socioeconomic levels in Chile, Germany and Spain differ or coincide as far as urban nature and landscapes are concerned.