The purpose of the stewardship contracting authority is to allow public land managers to achieve land management goals while meeting local rural community needs. The authority's use is on the rise, and many regard stewardship contracting as a win-win mechanism for federal land management and a means of ending the "timber wars" on public land. This report provides an overview of stewardship contracting, with a focus on improvements needed for it to reach its full potential.

Reindeer Rangifer tarandus tarandus husbandry in Sweden commonly uses the Scandinavian mountain chain as grazing area during the snow-free season and the coniferous forests in the east during winter. Current knowledge of habitat use by reindeer is primarily based on traditional or local knowledge, or on investigations carried out on wild reindeer and caribou in other parts of the world. We identified spatial and temporal habitat use of free-ranging semi-domesticated reindeer by following 48 GPS-equipped reindeer in three summer ranges in the Swedish reindeer herding area.

Silvopastoral systems are sustainable form of land management promoted by European Union. The productivity of the herbaceous and tree components in a silvopastoral system could be limited by soil fertility. The use of adequate doses of organic fertilisers like sewage sludge could enhance the productivity of both pasture and trees and promote biodiversity. The quantification of the best dose of sewage sludge to be applied in a silvopastoral system is important in order to enhance production and biodiversity in a silvopastoral system, while avoiding nitrate contamination of the ground water.

We reviewed the scope and quality of published literature relevant to management of the risk of fire and accompanying risks to ecological values, in the vegetation types (mostly forests and woodlands, but including grasslands and herbfields) of the High Country (>750m asl) of south-eastern Australia. Our analysis of quality suggests the published science has improved markedly over the past 60years. That said, there is insufficient data on any subject for a formal meta-analysis.

Three mega-fires in Victoria over the period 2002–2009 burnt some 3million hectares, or 40% of the state’s public land. In the worst of these bushfires—Black Saturday, 7 February 2009–173 people lost their lives in Australia’s worst civilian tragedy. Each of these three fires was followed by intensive inquiries and investigations, the most prolonged and intensive being a Royal Commission inquiry (the most rigorous form of legal inquiry in Australia) into the Black Saturday fires.

There are 12 conservation land trust organizations (CLTOs) in the province of Alberta, Canada that actively steward land. Together they have protected over 1.09 million hectares of land. Using in-depth interview data with published documents on CLTOs, this paper examines how CLTOs make decisions as to which projects to pursue and the kinds of justifications they offer for the projects they have completed. We identify 13 aspects that such a decision-making process should contain. The CLTOs studied have, to some degree, incorporated 7 of them.

The Little Bustard Tetrax tetrax is one of the most threatened steppe bird species in Europe, due mainly to agricultural intensification. Despite the relative importance of the Iberian population (approximately 50% of the global population) little is known about its dynamics and trends, especially in core distribution areas. This study evaluates the influences of meteorological factors and land management on the oscillations and medium-term trends of two Little Bustard populations in Central Spain.

The habitats of Sarracenia rubra subsp. wherryi (Wherry’s pitcher plant) and Symphyotrichum georgianum (Georgia aster) have been declining as a result of human population growth, poor land management, invasive exotic species, and fire prevention. Through a partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and the Beattie Foundation measures have been taken to protect these species through a propagation and re-introduction program.

Over the past 20 years, water reform has moved to clarify water rights and responsibilities among users, separated water and land management, and introduced markets. Most recently, water policy has clearly recognised the need for environmental allocations to ensure sustainability. These reforms, especially the last, have created conflicts between stakeholder groups.

The pygmy rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis), the world's smallest rabbit, has a limited distribution due to its year round dependence on sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) for food and shelter. Due to accelerating habitat loss from fragmentation, development, and fire, understanding the pygmy rabbit's ecology has become increasingly important. In 2010, we initiated a study of the status of a pygmy rabbit population and its habitat requirements on U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land near Woodruff in northeastern Utah.