Increasing emphasis is being placed in forest policies to deliver public goods such as biodiversity, recreation, landscape and carbon sequestration, alongside timber production. In light of this, it is important to understand how woodland owners themselves perceive their role in delivering these multiple benefits. With up to 80% of woodland in…

The hegemonic ideology of racial democracy and rural cultural norms of racial silence continue to inform racial identities and national racial discourse in Brazil, in this case within the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST), a left-wing movement for agrarian reform. In this article I engage in textual analysis of a textbook from the MST's youth…

Recent efforts to explain the persistence of rural poverty have made frequent use of the concept of poverty traps, understood as self-reinforcing poverty. The dynamic dimension of the poverty trap concept makes it a potentially useful tool for understanding conditions of persistent poverty, especially in circumstances where outside interventions…

Recent energy and climate policies, particularly in the developed world, have increased demand for bioenergy as an alternative, which has led to both direct and indirect land-use changes and an array of environmental and socio-economic concerns. A comprehensive understanding of the land-use dynamics of bioenergy crop production is essential for…

In order to achieve the regional sustainability and bio-cultural preservation, environmental education of youth will be critical, however due to the lack of the specific subject of regional studies at the educational curriculum, students are not able to achieve the skills to understand the local environment and feel isolated from nature. We…

Drawing on the findings of empirical research conducted in the South West of England, this paper explores how farmers make sense of re-emerging imperatives for "food security" in UK policy and political discourse. The analysis presented is based on two types of empirical inquiry. First, an extensive survey of 1543 farmers, exploring the…

This article examines the westward imposition of specific kinds of land use by focusing on the Harmony Society's transformation of Posey County, Indiana. The German pietistic society carried their vision of proper land use from Europe to Pennsylvania and, in 1814, to what was then considered the West: Indiana Territory. During their decade in…

There is a broad consensus that the corporate sector has an active role in facilitating community development through corporate-community investment. However, there remains uncertainty as to how much the sector should invest without taking on responsibilities and influencing decisions which are traditionally within the realm of the state. This…

For 25 years the Australian Landcare program has encouraged rural land managers to work cooperatively to resolve natural resource management issues across the nation. Landcare has spread and the model is used internationally. Despite its successes, Landcare has come under criticism for not sufficiently directing land management practices towards…

For decades, educators have hoped to integrate geospatial tools into K-12 classrooms but struggled with barriers of time, technology, and curriculum alignment. The authors formed a design partnership with ninth-grade science and social studies teachers in an urban high school in order to conduct teacher professional development while also…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how learning technology could be applied to the development of educational tools for global climate change. The task to be performed in an informed dialogue is to assess the causes and drivers for global climate change and to produce an improved basis of scientific understanding for the…

This article summarizes a social mapping project conducted by the Environmental Education, Communication and Arts Research Group from the Federal University of Mato Grosso. The primary goals of the project were to map the vulnerable social groups of Mato Grosso, and identify the social and environmental conflicts that put them in situations of…

This empirical study intends to present core results of the change in environmental literacy of German students by analysing PISA 2006 and 2015 data. The study is carried out within the scope of environmental literacy in science education. The data are based on findings of both PISA 2006 data (N= 4891) and PISA 2015 data (N= 6504) of German…

This study reports an action research undertaken at Queensland University of Technology. It evaluates the effectiveness of the integration of geographic information systems (GIS) within the substantive domains of an existing land use planning course in 2011. Using student performance, learning experience survey, and questionnaire survey data, it…

Most soils found in the Amazon region are characterized by highly weathered profiles that are incapable of longterm agricultural production. However, small patches of highly fertile relict soil referred to as Terra Pretas, are also found in the Amazon region, and have maintained their integrity for thousands of years. These soils were…