We conducted a comparative hazard assessment for 325,000ha in a fire-prone area of southwest Oregon, USA. The landscape contains a variety of land ownerships, fire regimes, and management strategies. Our comparative hazard assessment evaluated the effects of two management strategies on crown fire potential and northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) conservation: (1) no action, and (2) active manipulation of hazardous fuels.

Land ownership in the United States is understood as a bundle of sticks representing rights to sell, lease, bequeath, mine, subdivide, develop, and so forth. The right of exclusion allows owners to prevent others from exercising a right of access. Historically, access and then exclusion contributed to a sense of self-determination and personal freedom in the American landscape. Governing agencies reserve four rights for their use: condemnation, regulation, taxation, and escheat.

Agricultural land values and cash rental rates in South Dakota, by region and by state, are primary topics of this report. The target audience are farmers and ranchers, landowners, ag professional (lenders, rural appraisers, professional farm managers), and policy makers interested in ag land market trends. This report contains results of the 2010 Farm Real Estate Market Survey, the 20th annual SDSU survey developed to estimate ag land values and cash rental rates by land use in different regions of South Dakota.

The present study adapts the choice experiment (CE) method for an analysis of how Swedish farmers assess the relative value of the characteristics associated with growing energy crops. An additional goal was to find out the willingness of farmers to grow energy crops relative to different levels of income and subsidies based on predictions of acreage of energy crop cultivation. In the first CE, farmers were presented with two energy crops and six of their characteristics and asked to choose the alternative he or she preferred most.

In recent years, the concept of ‘food sovereignty’ has gained increasing ground among grassroots groups, taking the form of a global movement. But there is no uniform conceptualization of what food sovereignty constitutes. Indeed, the definition has been expanding over time. It has moved from its initial focus on national self-sufficiency in food production (‘the right of nations’) to local self-sufficiency (‘the rights of peoples’). There is also a growing emphasis on the rights of women and other disadvantaged groups, and on consensus building and democratic choice.

The reform of the 90s led to the elimination of states monopoly of landownership and to the privatization of most agricultural lands. Within the small auxiliary sector of agricultural land the turnover arose in the early reform. But in the large agro-industrial sector, the turnover of lands received the necessary legal regulation only in 2003 (more than 10 years later than the mass privatization of these lands). For this type of turnover, a significant part of the regulatory mechanisms was borrowed from foreign experience, because the domestic experience was absent.

In this research, we evaluated the intent of engaged private forest landowners to supply woody biomass for bioenergy production. The study was conducted in a U.S. state (Kentucky) where private individuals own a majority (78%) of the state's forest resources. Intent of family forest owners was measured using a mail-based survey. We used the Theory of Planned Behavior to model factors that affect landowner intention, and we tested the effect of educational materials on participates' reported intent.