The structure of land estates and farm-sizes are the basis of a competitive agricultural production, hence these questions belong to the evergreen themes both of theory and practice also on international level. In Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs), the change ofpolitical and economic regime virtually tore into the agriculture in beginning of 1990s, destroying the existing structure of land estates by the privatization, restitutions or restoration of ownership rights resulting in fragmentation of land ownership.

A variety of tools can be employed in support of environmental policy objectives, but achieving preferred outcomes also requires the cooperation of private landholders and others with vested interests in the land. The Land Stewardship project in the state of Victoria, Australia, is an initiative devoted to exploring the ways in which private landholders could be encouraged towards more sustainable land management.

The aim of this study was to assess spider diversity among habitats that are typically used for afforestation in Ireland, and to identify habitat parameters which could potentially be used as indicators of their biodiversity value. Ground-dwelling spiders were surveyed in 24 sites across Ireland, with eight sites of each of the following habitat types: improved grassland, wet grassland and peatland.

This paper presents an empirical investigation of how agricultural land ownership inequality and government ideology (right-wing vs. left-wing) affect agricultural protection. Theoretically, the links are quite ambiguous, switching from positive to negative depending on the structure of the underlying political economic model - i.e. pressure groups vs. median voter approach.

The unequal distribution of agricultural land is often cited as a source of inefficiency in agriculture. Previous cross-country studies of agricultural productivity differences, though, have not considered land inequality. This article addresses this issue by using cross-country data on inequality in operational holdings of agricultural land from Deininger and Squire (1998) . In an estimation of an agricultural production function, the Gini coefficient for land holdings is found to have a significant negative relationship with productivity.