The current support policy is increasing gaps in land management intensity among different regions of the country. The support policy for agricultural and rural development does not deal with solutions for land abandonment or environmental objectives, because the abandonment is becoming a hidden, environmental policy and rural development process, which is more expensive for society. Some alternative approaches and principles for designing a new agricultural land policy for Latvia could decrease the policy costs and make land management more targeted and acceptable for society.

The Alpine Convention emerged from the recognition of the Alpine countries that it is necessary to protect the natural and cultural values and to support the sustainable development of the Alpine area. Slovenia is one of the signatories of this important international contract, which links together8 countries, 5.971 communities and more than 13 million inhabitants. In the present article, some of the basic indicators for the Slovenian area ofthe Alpine Convention are presented and compared with the entire country.

Remote sensing of vegetation by using active microwave sensors is important for the management of land and water resources. Microwave radiation at X-band penetrates only the upper part of the canopy; thus, radar backscattering comes mainly from the top vegetation layer, making the scattering from soil almost negligible. Fourteen in situ measurement campaigns were carried out during which sixteen SAR images of COSMO-SkyMed and TerraSAR-X were acquired on the test site of Merguellil Basin, in the centre of Tunisia, from March to May 2012.

Drylands are often characterized by their patchy vegetation and exposed soil. This structure allows transport of soil resources and propagules through the ecosystem (primarily by wind and water but also by animals), thus making the connectivity for the flow of these materials a key component of ecosystem function in drylands. We argue that, as the fertile island concept before it, the concept of connectivity explains many phenomena observed in drylands.

A novel quantum cascade laser absorption spectrometer (QCL-AS) was tested to monitor N₂O exchange fluxes over an intensively managed grassland using the eddy covariance approach. The instrument employs a continuous wave quantum cascade laser to scan over the absorption features of N₂O, CH₄ and water vapor at 7.8μm. The precision of the N₂O flux measurements was determined to be 0.2nmolm⁻² s⁻¹ but the accuracy can easily be affected by water vapor interferences twice as large.

The distribution variability of soil electrical conductivity (EC), pH, clay, sand, CaCO ₃, organic carbon (OC) and available potassium (K) in the Naqade region was investigated using a geostatistical method and Geographical Information System (GIS) technique. Two hundred and eighty-two topsoil (0–30 cm) samples were randomly collected and analyzed. pH and clay followed a normal distribution, whereas sand EC, CaCO ₃, OC and K were log-transformed. The highest variation was observed for soil EC, and the lowest for soil pH.

Conventional soil survey information is often unclear except to specialists. An approach using soil toposequences and a soil identification key was used to aid the translation of soil survey information into a form suitable for a nonspecialist audience with a case study from Brunei. Soil Taxonomy was used to characterize the major soil types; however, to assist end users, a complementary special‐purpose soil classification system was developed in the form of a soil identification key using plain language terms in English that were also translated into Malay.

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.

The Florida Everglades is a ecologically rich land and water environment that has gone through three phases. In the first phase, a small indigenous population drew its low-impact livelihood from the Everglades. During the second phase, the Everglades was drained, plowed, developed, and seriously damaged, while helping to support a booming South Florida economy. During the third phase, earlier alterations of water flow patterns in a part of the original Everglades are being restored and agricultural impacts are being mitigated.

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.