Social context as more or less neglected field of sustainable development is crucial for the implementation of forest management measures. We can consider it as a basis to cope with (changing) social structure characteristics. Rationalisation of public services, which we face when coping with economic crisis, might take this into consideration. The Forest Service network serves as a scanner of needs in their social context. It is also a respondent to local specifics in the form of forest management measures.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the structure of forest landscape and its impact on biodiversity in the Bauska District, Latvia. The database of the State Forest Service and field research from 1994 to 2004 were used. Diversity and protection of the current forest ecosystems were described using different forest classification methods. The structure of tree species and their age was analyzed. Analysis indicated a decrease of oak forests by 3.5% of their native vegetation area and a high proportion of drained forests, as well as a disproportional age structure of forest ecosystems.

In Greece, there is no official inventory for the activity land use, land use change and forestry. The national forest inventory was completed in 1992. Using the data of this inventory, the carbon store of woody biomass of Greece has been estimated by FAO-TBFRA (2000) as 52.04 millions t C, of which 46.36 millions t C is above stump biomass and 8.67 millions t C is stump and root biomass.

In recent years, private companies have acquired long-term leasehold titles to more than five million hectares of what was formerly customary land in Papua New Guinea (PNG), but hardly any of this land has been devoted to production of the four green commodities in which PNG might have some comparative advantage – sustainable palm oil, bio-ethanol, biodiversity and carbon credits. Nearly all of it is dedicated to so-called ‘agro forestry’ projects that appear to be short-term salvage logging projects justified by the promise of a purely virtual form of large-scale agricultural production.

SummaryThere are compelling reasons to encourage the employment of Indigenous Australians in the forestry sector. The benefits of, and constraints to, Indigenous employment in the sector were examined using a case study approach focused on Indigenous participation in ‘Operation Farm Clear’, an emergency response following Cyclone Larry in northern Queensland in 2006. The findings suggested that, given a supportive environment, there are opportunities for Indigenous people to benefit from employment in the forestry sector.

It is important to reclam degraded soils in forest nurseries to get quality planting material. Organic wastes and fertilizers on their base may be used for it. The aim of the research is to evaluate the effectiveness of influence of non-traditional fertilizers on the basis of organic waste on fertility of sod-podzolic soils, growth of seedlings and saplings of trees in forest nurseries. In the course of the research such problems as influence of non-conventional fertilizers on properties of sod-podzolic soils were studied.

The estate Gornji grad, since 1462 in the ownership in the diocese of Ljubljana, owned for centuries large forests and leasehold pastures. They were managaed in a traditional way with the servitude or otherwise acquired rights of the bondsmen, applying selected felling of the trees, mostly without allocation to the bondsmen or by increasing the acreage of the pasture on the expense of that of the forests as well as in many other ways. All this finally resulted, although unintentionally, in the benefit of the bondsmen.

Global conservation discourses and practices increasingly rely on market-based solutions to fulfill the dual objective of forest conservation and economic development. Although varied, these interventions are premised on the assumption that natural resources are most effectively managed and preserved while benefiting livelihoods if the market-incentives of a liberalised economy are correctly in place.

Summary There are compelling reasons to encourage the employment of Indigenous Australians in the forestry sector. The benefits of, and constraints to, Indigenous employment in the sector were examined using a case study approach focused on Indigenous participation in ‘Operation Farm Clear’, an emergency response following Cyclone Larry in northern Queensland in 2006. The findings suggested that, given a supportive environment, there are opportunities for Indigenous people to benefit from employment in the forestry sector.

We evaluated how the management and use of public forest land administered by Minnesota county land departments changed once these forests were transferred to private ownership. To characterize these changes, the individuals and organizations who purchased forest land from Minnesota's county land departments were surveyed using a mail questionnaire. The sale of county forest land did not appear to produce noticeable changes in timber harvesting or the level of investment in forest management.

One of the most visible components of the Forestry Development Project, carried out between 2003 and 2009 by the World Bank and Romanian Government was “PR support, Awareness Campaign and Development of PR products”, meant to improve the communication between all stakeholders involved in sustainable forest management. The awareness campaign mainly consisted of nine meetings with the forest owners and nine workshops with all stakeholders, i.e.