Homegardens are one of the oldest forms of managed land use systems characterised by high diversity and complexity of their species structure which in turn contribute to efficient nutrient cycling. Litterfall and decomposition are the two major processes that replenish the soil nutrient pools and endow sustainability to these agroforests. A study was carried out in the village Dargakona, Barak Valley, northeast India to understand the pattern of litter production and litter decomposition in the traditional homegardens.

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 key goal in land management is to prevent ecosystem shifts that affect human well-being. Like other types of sagebrush shrublands, large areas dominated by the common but little-studied mountain silver sagebrush may have shifted to a less productive shrub-dominated alternate state under heavy livestock grazing in the 19th century. The goals of this study are to 1) describe long-term vegetation change in a silver sagebrush mountain park and 2) evaluate evidence that these changes constitute alternate states.

This paper discusses participatory processes in wildland fire management (WFM). Participation is an essential element of both the European Sustainable Development (SD) Strategy and the White Paper on Governance. Governance and SD have thus become an interconnected challenge to be applied to WFM (as a sub-area in forest policy), amongst other policies. An overspread weakness in WFM is lack of real participation of stakeholders. Absence of (or deficient) participation can seriously impair contribution of this group to WFM in high-risk areas and runs counter governance and the SDS.

Using a data set collected in eight districts of Uganda, this study investigates how investment in soil fertility management (SFM) and conservation practices may affect natural resource outcomes, particularly the extent and level of soil erosion and soil nutrient loss. The study used ordered probit models and the results suggest that investment in SFM and conservation practices greatly improves soil fertility and reduces soil erosion.

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.

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.

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.