The fast-growing palm oil economy has stimulated a significant expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesia. The uncontrolled development of large oil palm plantations has raised complex socio-ecological issues, including changes of ecological landscapes, organization of production, and farming household livelihood systems. For two oil palm villages with different ecological settings, this article describes changes in land cover, how production is organized, and the income structure changes due to rural economic development.

Connectivity and wildlife corridors are often key components to successful conservation and management plans. Connectivity for wildlife is typically modeled in a static environment that reflects a single snapshot in time. However, it has been shown that, when compared with dynamic connectivity models, static models can underestimate connectivity and mask important population processes. Therefore, including dynamism in connectivity models is important if the goal is to predict functional connectivity.

The wildland–urban interface (WUI) occurs at the intersection of houses and undeveloped wildlands, where fire is a safety concern for communities, motivating investment in planning, protection, and risk mitigation. Because there is no operational definition of WUI based on where fires in fact have occurred, I used fire occurrences to objectively establish a definition of WUI, while examining spatiotemporal changes, for the conterminous United States.

Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) has grown in stature as a key component of many national natural resource and rural development governance systems. Despite their growth, the integrity of CBNRM governance systems has rarely been analysed in a national context. To enhance dialogue about how best to design and deploy such systems nationally, this paper analyses the Australian system in detail. The Australian system was selected because the nation has a globally recognised and strong history of CBNRM approaches.

This paper is based on the results of an extensive (840-page) report of the Committee on National Spatial Development of the Polish Academy of Sciences, entitled Studies on Spatial Chaos (edited by A. Kowalewski, T, Markowski and P. Śleszyński—Studia KPZK PAN, vol. 182, Warsaw 2018—in Polish). Its aim was to conduct a comprehensive and detailed study on the problem of spatial chaos (spatial disorder), including an estimate of economic costs in Poland. For this purpose, literature was queried (articles and reports, etc.) and special analyses were prepared for this purpose.

The surrounding landscape of ancient Pergamon is characterized by several mountain ranges, the Bakırçay Valley and River and the Aegean coastline. The accessibility of this region was vital for the city since it provided food and resources as well as trade, communication and military movements, all facilitated by a well-developed route network. Despite the importance of roads for the development and prosperity of the city, the ancient route network is still widely unexplored and archeological evidence of roads is extremely rare.

Cultural ecosystem services are gaining increasing attention in the scientific literature, despite the conceptual and methodological difficulties associated with their assessment. We used a participatory GIS method to map and assess three cultural ecosystem services, namely, (a) outdoor recreation, (b) aesthetic enjoyment, and (c) sense of place, in the Madrid region (Spain). The main goal of the study was to identify cultural ecosystem service hotspots in the region and to explore the relationships among the three ecosystem services mapped.

The article is dedicated to the phenomenon of spatial chaos in the suburban areas of Polish cities, which, due to uncontrolled scattering of buildings (urban sprawl), require urgent retrofitting. These activities should contribute to the gradual densification of buildings and the more frequent functioning of suburbanites in the local environment, close to the place of residence.

Environmental degradation is closely related to unreasonable land use behaviors by farmers. In this study, participatory rural assessment (PRA) is used to conduct a detailed survey of farmers and plots and to collect relevant natural and social statistics. The accuracy of remote sensing data is verified by comparative analysis, and the change in status of various land use types in each research period is reflected by the change in the dynamic degree and change in range.

In the face of rapid urbanization and globalization, the continual loss of rural landscapes is occurring globally because of declining rural industries, abandoned farmlands and aging local populations. These problems highlight the versatility and diverse values of cultural ecosystem services (CES) to provide feasible responses for rural landscapes.

Estonian and Latvian rural inhabitants enjoy many factors enhancing the quality of life, such as the peace and quiet of the countryside, fresh food and rural activities. However, these benefits are insufficient to overcome poor employment prospects in rural areas. Place-shaping practices have transformative powers that are instrumental in achieving sustainable change in communities.

The study gives an insight into the domain of seasonal mountain settlements for summer cattle grazing (katuns), characteristic for the mountainous areas in the Mediterranean basin. The area of the Kuči Mountain in Montenegro was chosen for the case study. The area contains numerous characteristics exemplary for the topic—193 katuns with more than 2900 belonging housing and subsidiary objects.