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.

Poverty and deforestation are critical issues in a number of developing countries where the policy framework is in many cases insufficient to provide rural people an incentive to afforest. This paper analyzes both the impact of land privatization on afforestation efforts of rural farm households in the Northern Uplands of Vietnam and the economic incentive of farm households on afforestation efforts. The determinants of afforestation by farm households were analyzed.

This study analyzed the financial attractiveness of Clean Development Mechanism Afforestation and Reforestation (CDM A/R) in irrigated agricultural settings. The Net Present Value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of CDM A/R were estimated by analyzing the case of Khorezm region in Uzbekistan, where a mixed-species tree plantation was established on marginal cropland. The dual purposes of carbon sequestration and production of fruits, leaves as fodder, and fuelwood were studied over a seven-year rotation period.

In Afghanistan, where 80% of the population is rural, irrigated agriculture using surface water is an extremely important economic activity. With the advent of the New Water Law, highly localized and centuries-old agricultural water management traditions are giving way to more modern centralized institutions. The newly-created river basin councils need management tools to support decision-making at the watershed level.

German nobility took an important role in Livonia, Estonia and Courland territorial development. During from the period 1870-1913 Riga was the largest export port in Russia province with 550 thousand inhabitants. Towns and large rural population difference resulted Latvian strongly developed agriculture, industry and urbanization. Strong turbulence time began with the year 1905, followed by years of war, and finally in 20 years of the 20th century the agrarian land reform ended in Estonia, Livonia and Latvia.

The urbanization has been significantly created wide scope of employment opportunities through manifold services sector. The mobility or migration of rural people has changed the social and economic condition of the landless labour of the rural area. In this case study migration of the village young of East Midnapore district of West Bengal who were from landless labour families with a little education has been noted. Their social and economic position had been remarkably changed within 3-5 years.

Communal forests, or Montes Veciñais en Man Común (MVMC), are a specific form of communal land tenure and a singular legal category in Galicia, a region in Northwest Spain. MVMC extend over one third of the area of the region. Over the years, MVMC have undergone many changes in terms of ownership and resource management. Such changes have resulted in land tenure insecurity among current landowners, who live in rural areas.

Agriculture is the mainstay of rural populations, especially in the developing world. Increasing population and the demand for food, fodder and fuelwood have threatened the sustainability of the land resources. Without understanding farmers' perceptions on land-related issues, sustainable management of land resources is impossible because they have intimate knowledge of their land. Besides technical solutions to land-related problems, socio-economic appraisal also plays an important role for solutions to these problems.

Spatial modifications should be introduced in areas where members of the local community actively participate in consolidation projects. Social acceptance is the key prerequisite for successful land consolidation. How should the sequence of land consolidation measures be planned in a rural area whose inhabitants have not expressed their opinions about the project? Are the existing criteria, which are applied to evaluate land consolidation measures mostly in agricultural regions, sufficient?

The Zagros region of western Iran has been affected by the recent changes both in amount and in structure of forest cover. We evaluated the influence of several driving forces on forest cover and structure, including socioeconomic (urban and rural population and rural income) and climatic (mean annual rainfall and mean annual temperature) variables. We acquired all time series Landsat images of a study site from 1972 to 2009. The images were classified to produce a land cover map of each year.