The Promotional Paper Forest Land Transformation in Latvia by Gunta Bāra has been developed at the Forest Faculty of the Latvian University of Agriculture between 2001 and 2007. Goal of the Promotional Paper: to identify the main problems in transformation of forest land in the Republic of Latvia and gaps in legislative instruments regulating the process of change of land use type, to prepare recommendations for their elimination, to develop a methodology for calculation of compensation for the losses caused to the state as a result of destruction of natural forest environment.

Having done research on agricultural decollectivization and its consequences since 1992, Ilkka Alanen and his colleagues has accumulated a wealth of knowledge on the coping strategies people adopted in order to survive in the Baltic countries and elsewhere (See Alanen 1998, Alanen et al 2001 and Alanen 2004a). The problems turned out to be much more difficult than the reforms planers anticipated, and that some of the initial failures still overshadow people’s lives.

This paper presents the issues of land resources on dairy farms of various scale of production. Using a dynamic scope, it analyses the shaping of parameters such as the area of own and rented land, share of rented land in the whole area of land, share of arable land, and the technical development of land factor in accordance with the number of dairy cows. Distinct dependencies between the shaping of parameters and the scale of production have been observed in the research. Data from the Polish FADN for the years 2004-2009 were used in the paper.

The fragmentation of landholdings is considered as disturbing factor for agriculture. The aim of this article is to evaluate the extent of land fragmentation of the large landholdings in Estonia. The Januszewski and Schmook indexes were calculated for that purpose. The detailed survey of three agricultural landholdings was conducted in order to assess the possibilities to reduce the land fragmentation and improve their land use conditions. Results showed that Estonian agricultural producers’ landholdings are considerably fragmented.

The object of the study reflected in the paper is the market sector of agricultural lands in Latvia. The goal set out in this scientific paper is to explore the development trends current in the target sector of the market and identify problems and barriers to successful progress common to the entire real estate market in this country.

The ongoing processes in agriculture, and the national economy in general, as well as continuous targeted reconstruction of the European Union Common Agricultural and Rural Development Policy, and other processes of globalisation and international integration, steadily and directly resound to Latvia, and create new objectives related to the use of land. The agreement on rural development adopted during the European Union Salzburg Conference has also established or determined new functions for the use of land.

The price of agricultural land and arable land is particularly low in Estonia when compared to Western European countries. The demand for agricultural land was low during the first decade after the collapse of the Soviet agriculture system. The situation is changing and the demand for agricultural land is increasing at the present time. Yet, simultaneously, the formation of arable land prices is not studied much. There are several factors affecting land prices and spatial characteristics are among them.

Since the economic recession in Latvia, the national debt in September 2010 amounted to 4.717 billion lats. The study confirms significant impact of downward trends of the economy of Latvia on the national budget performance indicators in 2009. One of the most commonly mentioned and controversial indicator is the real estate tax that has to be imposed also on the land. The aim of this study is to analyse and assess the system of the Land Fund of Latvia and features of tax application.

Both forestry theory and practice have proved that amelioration favours the growth of forest stands significantly. The growing stock increases even 10 times, if the amelioration system is well-functioning. Joint Stock Company Latvia State Forests that is managing half of forests in Latvia has started renovation of old amelioration systems aiming to improve the productivity of state owned forests in Latvia. In order to evaluate the impact of the renovation of the old amelioration systems, a tree ring width in 7 pine stands, 5 spruce stands and 3 birch stands was analysed.

Investigations of grasslands in Latvia started at the beginning of the 20ty century. One of the main goals was investigation of vegetation classification. In Latvia typology of natural grasslands in several investigation periods is based on different criterions: (1) economic typology, (2) grasslands vegetation physionomic classification according to dominant method, (3) classification of flora according to Braun-Blanquet method.