In order to achieve sustainable development, it is necessary to obtain and adopt planning procedures on the basis of Multi Criteria Evaluation of natural environment. Since biophysical (natural) environment has limited ecological capabilities for human use, ecological capability assessment, as an essence for environmental studies and with the aim of preventing existing crises, yields proper grounds for environmental planning. The analysis of land capability and sufficiency for urban development is one of the main categories with which urban planners deal.

This paper discusses the agrarian problem in Brazilian rural areas from the environmental point of view. The objective is to examine how the private appropriation of the Brazilian rural space came about, attributing to the environmental factor a role whose logic was relevant in the inherited agricultural context. According to this hypothesis, the specificity of the private appropriation process of public land, after 1850, is the origin of agricultural and environmental problems in the Brazilian rural space.

A relatively high degree of conflicts between development and developmental goals is an objective condition that one has to face in planning in large mining basins. Numerous conflicts exist: between wider public larger social interests (land occupation, removal-power production), short-term and long-term goals, specific and general aims, etc.

Land tenure in Namibia is regulated by a variety of Acts, some of which date back to as far as 1937, and some of which are

yet to be approved by Cabinet. This variety of Acts makes it difficult to evaluate the performance of land administration as a

whole, and the appropriateness of coercive instruments with regards to urban land tenure in particular. In this article we

evaluate how urban land tenure regularization practices are conducted in Namibia, and to compare new formal procedures,

Een belangrijke opgave voor de ruimtelijke planning is en balans te vinden tussen de toegenomen druk op de open groene ruimte door verstedelijking en economische ontwikkeling enerzijds, en de noodzaak van het behouden van deze landelijke gebieden voor natuur, recreatie, landschap en voedselproductie anderzijds. Dit complexe vraagstuk kan niet worden opgelost met behulp van lokale participatieve planning alleen. De afgelopen decennia is een groeiend aantal computersystemen ontwikkeld ter ondersteuning, het zogenaamde Planning Support System (PSS).