Tajikistan, with 93% of its surface area taken up by mountains and 65% of its labor forceemployed in agriculture, is judged to be highly vulnerable to risks, including climate changerisks and food insecurity risks. The article examines a set of land use policies and practices thatcan be used to mitigate the vulnerability of Tajikistan’s large rural population, primarily byincreasing family incomes. Empirical evidence from Tajikistan and other CIS countries suggeststhat families with more land and higher commercialization earn higher incomes and achievehigher well-being.

The implicit hydrologic dimensions of international efforts to mitigate climate change, specifically potential impacts of the Clean Development Mechanism-Afforestation/Reforestation (CDM-AR) provisions of the Kyoto Protocol (KP) on global, regional and local water cycles, are examined. The global impact of the redistribution of water use driven by agriculture and land use change, of which CDM-AR can be a contributing factor, is a major component of ongoing global change and climate change processes.

It might be considered unlikely that inadequate access to land would be one of the major causes of rural poverty in Zambia. However, evidence presented in this paper shows that economically viable arable land is not in great abundance in Zambia after considering the current situation with respect to access to road infrastructure and access to services and markets. In fact, access to land is already a major problem for large segments of the rural population in Zambia.

The article is devoted to the actual development factors and regularities of the existence of ecologically dangerousprocesses of agriculture. The questions of intensification of agriculture and scientific and technological progress and analyzesthe system of state management of land resources.

The development of synergies between efforts to mitigate land degradation and biological diversity decline can enhance effectiveness, speed up implementation and avoid potential conflicts. Due to the variable nature of these processes and to the variable characteristics of the areas where they occur, there is no general rule linking land degradation and biological diversity decline. Thus, a geographically limited approach focusing on drivers of change may provide a more appropriate base upon which synergies can be built. This exercise is undertaken for the case of northern Mediterranean.

Land use reflects the needs, demands and values of human society. We can see two antagonistic trends of land use change in Slovakia over the past few decades. Land use change towards more intensive in some areas (vicinity of cities, highways, lowlands), but others (uplands and mountains with traditionally agricultural used) are abandoned and left to their own spontaneous dynamic. The abandonment of agriculture is a pattern common to all industrialized countries, especially in hilly and mountain ranges (Farina, A., 2007).

Agricultural land is being converted into rural residences at historic rates. Landholders and residents of amenity rich Sublette County, Wyoming were surveyed concerning preferences for land use controls. Logit models are estimated for policy approval. Private choice variables rather than public choice variables are the primary determinants of policy approval.

As part of its climate change policy the Australian government has introduced aMandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) scheme and is also attempting to introduce a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS). Using as a case study a main agricultural region of Australia, this paper examines how farming systems in this region may be affected by the medium term policy settings of these two schemes. A bio-economic model of the region’s farming systems is developed and used to assess the schemes’ impacts on the nature and profitability of the farming systems.

Paper prepared for presentation at the Third International Conference onCoexistence between Genetically Modified (GM) and non-GM basedAgricultural Supply Chains (GMCC)Seville (Spain), 20th and 21st November 2007

Carbon sequestration in agricultural soils is considered as an option of greenhouse gasmitigation in many countries. But, the economic potential is limited by the dynamicprocess of saturation and the opportunity cost of land use change. In addition, thisarticle shows that permanence cannot, in general, be achieved in the strict sense ofmaintaining the soil carbon stock on an increased equilibrium level. Rather, a cyclicalpattern with periodical release of sequestered carbon can be economically optimal fromboth the farmers’ and societal point of view.