Forests in the Central Hardwood region are undergoing change in terms of area, volume, species composition, and forest structure. These forests are dominated by deciduous species; are increasing their average stand size, volume, and age; and, are experiencing woody plant species replacement as shade intolerant species are being replaced by more shade tolerant species. As changes progress, concerns are being raised regarding the potential for these lands to produce the wide array of benefits associated with timberland.

The availability of timber in the United States depends largely on forest management and investment decisions of nonindustrial private forest landowners since they hold the largest share of forest land in the nation. Since NIPF landowners are so diverse, there is a need to better understand the determinants of their decisions so that policies could be in place to motivate them. A survey was carried out in 2005 to the nonindustrial private forest landowners of West Virginia to examine the factors affecting their forest management decisions.

Land has had a crucial role in the rural-nationalist ideology, especially with respect to its scarcity. In this ideology the land itself embodies a symbolic meaning which could be referred to as the "national mother-earth" which must be protected from aliens. This was the reason why the governments of the ECE candidate countries asked and received a period of 7-12 years exemption from EU rules with respect to the free movement of capital for the purpose of purchasing agricultural land.

Property regimes shape the social relations, in particular, social settings, and represent an important element for external intervention and sustainable rural development. The introduction recalls common aspects and specific conceptualisations of property analysis in the field of economics, sociology and social anthropology and summarises main academic discourses about property rights in order to develop a differentiated understanding of property. In Section 1, general trends in property relations characterising modern rural societies are outlined.

CONTEXT: Landscape ecology theory provides insight about how large assemblages of protected areas (PAs) should be configured to protect biodiversity. We adapted these theories to evaluate whether the emergence of decentralized land protection in a largely private landscape followed the principles of reserve design. OBJECTIVES: Our objectives were to determine: (1) Are there distinct clusters of PAs in time and space? (2) Are PAs becoming more spatially clustered through time? and (3) Does the resulting PA portfolio have traits characteristic of ideal reserve design?

The global poor often prioritise immediate hazards of food insecurity over temporally more distant risks like global warming. Yet the influence of socio-economic factors, temporal and spatial distance on risk perception remains under-researched. Data on risk perception and response were collected from two sets of Indian villages. Participatory approaches were used to investigate variations by socio-economic status, food security, age and gender. Villagers’ risk priorities reflected clear spatial and temporal patterns depending on land ownership, community group and education levels.

Several federal- and state-sponsored programs, including cost-sharing arrangements, tax incentives, and technical assistance programs, are available to forestland owners, aiming to encourage desired forest management practices and outcomes. However, enrollment rates in such programs are low, and trends of forestland parcelization hint at an even smaller enrollment rate in the future. Therefore, it is important to understand how socioeconomic attributes of forestland owners and past experience with such programs affect the likelihood of enrollment in public incentive programs.

The implementation of land reform has influenced the formation of property structure. The main procedures of land reform activities are stated in Estonian legislation. However, the provisions for determining the area and the boundaries for properties to be formed in the course of land reform are stated in legal acts in an unsystematic way. The aim of this study is to systematize the parcel area and the boundaries determination procedures that are used in the course of land reform for property formation.

The study established the factors that influence the use of cattle and chicken manure for managing soil fertility by surveying a random sample of 224 farm households in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa. The majority (87%) of the respondents are farming on communal land with an average farm size of 2.9 ha. Sixty-three% of the farmers in the sample used manure to manage soil fertility in their fields. Despite the fact that chicken manure was available in large quanties in the area, 54% of manure used was from cattle while chicken manure was used by 39% of the sample.

Research highlight based on a PhD thesis titled The dark zone: Groundwater irrigation, politics and social power in North Gujarat.