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

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.

Landscapes differ in their capacities to provide ecosystem goods and services, which are the benefits humans obtain
from nature. Structures and functions of ecosystems needed to sustain the provision of ecosystem services are altered
by various human activities. In this paper, a concept for the assessment of multiple ecosystem services is proposed
as a basis for discussion and further development of a respective evaluation instrument. Using quantitative and

Demographic change suggests substantial effects on future societal demands on agricultural landscape use and thus on rural areas. Demographic change is thereby defined as both the decrease of the population and the shift in the age distribution („aging“) and in the spatial distribution („rural flight“ particularly of young people).

New broader, adaptable and accommodating sets of themes have been proposed to help to identify, understand and solve sustainability problems. However, how this knowledge will foster decisions that lead to more desirable outcomes and analyses necessary to transition to sustainability remains a critical theoretical and empirical question for basic and applied research. We argue that we are still underestimating the tendency to lock into certain patterns that come at the cost of the ability to adjust to new situations.

The Rhodes trout fishery, located in the North Eastern Cape, is one of South Africa’s premier fly-fishing destinations. The integrity of the fishery is, however, under threat due to various land-use practices, which could weaken its appeal as a tourist attraction. The aim of this study is to estimate the amount recreational users are willing to pay for a project to improve the trout habitat of waters managed by the Wild Trout Association (WTA) in this fishery in order to improve its fish population density by 100 per cent.

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