In 2004, four focus groups consisting of agricultural landowners were organized in Northcentral Iowa to assess opportunities for hunting along in-field shelterbelts and on adjacent lands. A majority of respondents (95%) allowed/practiced some hunting on their lands. About 55% of respondents indicated that the potential existed for developing a fee hunting market associated with in-field shelterbelts.

In the Republic of Panama, reforestation with native species is of great interest, but many landholders often do not participate in tree planting projects and little information exists about landholder interest in, or experiences with, native trees. This study evaluates the experiences of farmers participating in a native species reforestation initiative in rural Panama to identify lessons learned that can guide on-going or future tree planting efforts.

This paper examines gender differences in awareness, preparedness and attitudes towards bushfire amongst landholders in rural landscapes affected by amenity-led in-migration in southeast Australia. It considers the potential of conceptualising bushfire not as a gender-neutral natural phenomenon but as an important means by which traditional gender roles and power relations within rural landscapes are maintained. Landholders were found to uphold conventional views of bushfire management as “men’s business” despite changing social circumstances.

In the conditions of the Republic of Belarus there was developed an information model for the provision of use and protection of arable lands taking into consideration the main sources and factors of anthropogenic influence on land resources. The model of information supply of the usage and protection of agricultural lands took into account data about their initial (base) condition and data about current changes, as well as analytical and archive data. It reflected ecological-economic side of management of land resources.

In 2007, an epizootic of equine influenza (EI) occurred in Australia, involving parts of the states of Queensland and New South Wales. Following an extensive control program, the disease was eradicated within 4 months, after infecting more than 75 000 horses on over 10 000 properties. In Queensland, examination of land use patterns revealed that the majority of infected premises (89.5%) were located in one of three land use classes viz. rural residential, residential-unspecified or grazing natural vegetation.

Quantifying the urban landscape pattern and its change is fundamental for monitoring and assessing the ecological and socio-economic consequences of urbanization. Using Indian Remote Sensing Panchromatic (IRS-PAN) imagery of 2002 and combining gradient analysis with landscape metrics, we compared the landscape patterns between metropolises and small-sized cities with increasing grain size. Landscape metrics were computed along a 51 × 9 km transect cutting across Shanghai and a 16 × 2 km transect cutting across Zhangjiagang with a moving window.

Understanding the local socioeconomic context is important for the design of appropriate conservation initiatives and associated monitoring strategies, especially in areas with high degrees of inequality, to ensure conservation interventions do not inadvertently further disadvantage vulnerable people. Typical assessments of wealth inequality in remote rural areas are constrained by limited engagement with a cash economy, complex family and tribal ties, and an absence of basic infrastructure.

Incorporating public or local preferences in landscape planning is often discussed with respect to the difficulties associated with accurate representation, stimulating interest and overcoming barriers to participation. Incorporating sectoral and professional preferences may also have the same degree of difficulty where conflicts can arise. Planning theory calls for inclusiveness and collaboration, ideally egalitarian, and analysis of the process often uses case study scenarios that may offer examples for practice and further research.

This paper is a critical synthesis of the causes, effects and challenges of the Sahelian droughts. The results show that the four main causes of the Sahelian droughts are as follows: sea surface temperature changes, vegetation and land degradation, dust feedbacks and human-induced climate change. However, human-induced climate change is seen as the major drought-determining factor because it controls sea surface temperatures, dust feedbacks and vegetation degradation.

Two Landsat images, acquired in 1987 and 2008, were analyzed to evaluate desertification processes in central North Kurdufan State (Sudan). Spectral Mixture Analysis (SMA) and multitemporal comparison techniques (change vector analysis) were applied to estimate the long-term desertification/re-growing of vegetation cover over time and in space. Site-specific interactions between natural processes and human activity played a pivotal role in desertification. Over the last 21 years, desertification significantly prevailed over vegetation re-growth, particularly in areas around rural villages.

Aquaculture continues to diversify and develop rapidly in Bangladesh. A major change has taken place in parts of Bangladesh due to the growth of floodplain aquaculture (FPA) projects. FPA involves the enclosure by the landholders of parts of the floodplain through the creation of embankments and sluice gates. The enclosed water body is stocked with fish seed and the benefits are distributed amongst those who own land in the impounded area.

Selection of rural buildings’ site is a complex process to solve a discordant relation with other components of rural landscapes and needs many diverse criteria to deal with its situation. This paper presents a multi-criteria spatial decision analysis approach using geographic information system (GIS) technique for evaluating the suitability of rural buildings site selection with a case study in Hervás (northern Extremadura region), Spain.