The management of agricultural landscape and the national policy on forests

The National Policy on Forests and the National Programme for the Augmentation of Forest Cover indicate regional needs, possibilities, legal and financial principles of afforestations as the most important elements of the improvement and maintenance of a good state of the country's environment. The documents put emphasis on the need for the establishment and restoration of afforestations between fields, however, neither the guidelines for their legal and administrative status nor sources of financing have been indicated. In many regions of the country, the large−scale afforestation are almost impossible, because high−quality soils are under agricultural production and the local communities lack the alternative means of living. Thus, the mid−field afforestations of a linear or small−surface type could be the only elements differentiating the landscape structure and acting as biogeochemical barriers. Their network perform the same complementary protective functions as forests or other semi−natural ecosystems. With a view to economising expenditures and intensifying effects aiming at the environment protection it is necessary to closely integrate the countryside environmental programmes including the establishment of biogeochemical barriers and afforestations. The principles of such integration and co−ordination of pro−ecological programmes of the landscape structure management should be laid down under a separate research project