Market-based policy instruments are used in the design of land management programs to provide incentives to landholders to generate efficient ecological outcomes on private land. Despite the increased use of economic instruments, many landholders remain unwilling to participate in these programs.

In this article, we provide a synthesis of the peer-reviewed literature and state and federal policies focused on absentee landowners of forestland, rangeland, or farmland in the U.S. The synthesis indicates absentee owners, as compared to those living on the land, appear to be much more likely to live in urban areas, are less dependent financially upon the land and much more likely to own land for amenity reasons than production purposes.

It has been predicted that Europe will experience a rise in temperature of 2.2–5.3 °C within this century. This increase in temperature may lead to vegetation change along altitudinal gradients. To test whether vegetation composition has already changed in the recent decade due to current warming (and other concomitant environmental changes), we recorded plant species composition in 1995 and 2005/2006 in Swiss pre-alpine fen meadows (800–1,400 m a.s.l.).

This study examined the occurrence, relative abundance and condition of platypuses in the upper catchment of the South Esk River, in north-east Tasmania, Australia, and the impact of past forestry activities on the occurrence of platypuses in first order headwater streams. The main trapping sites were in twenty first order streams, eight second-fourth order headwater streams and one fifth order stream reach. Additional trapping was also undertaken in the South Esk River and farm dams. Sites were trapped during late spring/mid summer and early autumn.

A GIS-based Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model is used to assess the impacts of climate change on the hydrological regime of the Cauvery river basin. First, the impact of changes in land-management practices on water availability under present conditions is modelled. Then, the same analysis is carried out under the future climatic scenarios. Finally, annual and monthly precipitation variability is compared under present, as well as future, climate-change scenarios.

The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) manages one-fifth of the land in the United States, including public lands administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management. Federal agencies have included public input in decision-making since the Administrative Procedure Act in 1946, with varying degrees of effectiveness. Recently, policy and reporting directives have broadened to include possibilities for collaborative conservation. Many disciplines are identifying this rise in collaboration as a new era of governance.

Pack and saddle stock, including, but not limited to domesticated horses, mules, and burros, are used to support commercial, private and administrative activities in the Sierra Nevada. The use of pack stock has become a contentious and litigious issue for land management agencies in the region inter alia due to concerns over effects on the environment.

Recognition of biochar as a potential tool for long-term carbon sequestration with additional agronomic benefits is growing. However, the functionality of biochar in soil and the response of soils to biochar inputs are poorly understood. It has been suggested, for example, that biochar additions to soils could prime for the loss of native organic carbon, undermining its sequestration potential. This work examines the priming potential of biochar in the context of its own labile fraction and procedures for their assessment.