Environmental Standards and Their Linkage to Support Instruments of the EU Common Agricultural Policy

Agricultural support payments in the EU are increasingly connected to compliance with environmental standards, through cross-compliance and "Good Farming Practice"-conditions. In this paper, this relatively new approach is analysed regarding targeting, compatibility with legal procedures, and effects on income and production. Compliance with standards is reinforced by more systematic controls and reductions of support payments. As farms are affected by such sanctions to a different extent, risk-analysis for selection of farms to be controlled is a crucial element of implementation. The real environmental impacts have to be considered, especially if indirect control indicators are applied. Furthermore, technical assistance and audits have to be promoted for the implementation of environmental standards.Good Farming Practice, cross-compliance, environmental standards, Agricultural and Food Policy, K32, Q28,

Evaluering af 10 trængselspletprojekter: Resultater og anbefalinger

Vejdirektoratet har efter anlæg af en række mindre projekter på statsvejnettet med det formål at forbedre fremkommeligheden i kryds gennemført evalueringer af disse på en ensartet og systematisk måde via et egenudviklet evalueringskoncept. Formålet er, at undersøge om projekterne virker efter hensigten og at sikre vej- og trafikfaglig læring, som kan bruges i den fremadrettede vejplanlægning

Landscape Strategy-Making and Collaboration:The Hills of Northern Mors, Denmark; A Case of Changing Focus and Scale

This paper focuses on a three-year rural landscape strategy-making process, which was driven by a Danish municipality and involved a large number of stakeholders. The project was part of an action research program aimed at developing new approaches to collaborative landscape planning. Gaining experiences with such approaches was part of this aim. During the course of the project, the focus and scale of the strategy changed significantly. The process developed in interesting ways in respect to three dimensions of collaborative landscape planning: collaboration, scale, and public goods. After a brief review of the three dimensions and their links to landscape planning, the case story is unfolded in three sections: (1) The planning process, (2) the process outcome (the strategy), and (3) the aftermath in terms of critical reflections from participating planners and local stakeholders. The process and outcome of the landscape strategy-making process is discussed in the context of collaboration, scale, and public goods, including a brief outline of the lessons learned

Bacterial membrane activity of α-peptide/β-peptoid chimeras: Influence of amino acid composition and chain length on the activity against different bacterial strains

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Characterization and use of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) requires that their mode of action is determined. The interaction of membrane-active peptides with their target is often established using model membranes, however, the actual permeabilization of live bacterial cells and subsequent killing is usually not tested. In this report, six α-peptide/β-peptoid chimeras were examined for the effect of amino acid/peptoid substitutions and chain length on the membrane perturbation and subsequent killing of food-borne and clinical bacterial isolates.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>All six AMP analogues inhibited growth of twelve food-borne and clinical bacterial strains including Extended Spectrum Beta-Lactamase-producing <it>Escherichia coli</it>. In general, the Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations (MIC) against Gram-positive and -negative bacteria were similar, ranging from 1 to 5 μM. The type of cationic amino acid only had a minor effect on MIC values, whereas chain length had a profound influence on activity. All chimeras were less active against <it>Serratia marcescens </it>(MICs above 46 μM). The chimeras were bactericidal and induced leakage of ATP from <it>Staphylococcus aureus </it>and <it>S. marcescens </it>with similar time of onset and reduction in the number of viable cells. EDTA pre-treatment of <it>S. marcescens </it>and <it>E. coli </it>followed by treatment with chimeras resulted in pronounced killing indicating that disintegration of the Gram-negative outer membrane eliminated innate differences in susceptibility. Chimera chain length did not influence the degree of ATP leakage, but the amount of intracellular ATP remaining in the cell after treatment was influenced by chimera length with the longest analogue causing complete depletion of intracellular ATP. Hence some chimeras caused a complete disruption of the membrane, and this was parallel by the largest reduction in number of viable bacteria.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We found that chain length but not type of cationic amino acid influenced the antibacterial activity of a series of synthetic α-peptide/β-peptoid chimeras. The synthetic chimeras exert their killing effect by permeabilization of the bacterial cell envelope, and the outer membrane may act as a barrier in Gram-negative bacteria. The tolerance of <it>S. marcescens </it>to chimeras may be due to differences in the composition of the lipopolysaccharide layer also responsible for its resistance to polymyxin B.</p

Relationships between the perception of cultural ecosystem services and land cover in Central-Eastern-Europe

Despite of the growing number of studies related to ecosystem services, there is still a lack of deeper understanding of cultural ecosystem services (CES). CES are defined as nonmaterial benefits obtained from ecosystem, which significantly influence the quality of life. The assessment of cultural services is still challenging due to the perceived intangible nature of them, and their dependence on social background. Consequently, the evaluation requires empirical work, which is mainly carried out by surveys. Among these methods, over the last years Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) was the most frequently employed tool. Based on the former research, one can argue, that in this field there is still a lack of Central-Eastern European PPGIS studies on a regional scale. In our previous research, we dealt with the influencing effect of accessibility and the extent of local identity related to CES perception. However, our current study focuses on the relationships of CES and biophysical features (land cover and protected areas). We investigated the following research questions: Which kind of relationships exist between mapped CES and land cover? Which kind of relationships exist between CES perception and protected areas? How similar are the spatial patterns of the mapped CES? Are these associations consistent with other studies from different geographical contexts? What are the implications of the empirical findings for managing CES in the Central- Eastern-European context? We chose 18 settlements of the micro-region of Vác located in the Budapest Metropolitan Region as the study area. Five cultural ecosystem services were defined: aesthetic, recreational and therapeutic, spiritual, cultural and historic, educational values. During the survey a total of 184 maps were made, after the data was digitized. The analyses were performed partly by GIS methods (using QGIS software) and partly by statistical analyzes (Chi-square test, Z test). Our results showed that there are land use types with which most of the studied CES show significant positive correlation (mainly residential areas and artificial, non-agricultural green areas). Positive correlation can also be identified with surface waters, forests, and grasslands for aesthetic and recreational values. In contrast, we identified negative correlation between agricultural areas and all types of studied services. We also found, that national protected areas have positive correlation with the perceived CES, nevertheless, this relationship cannot be identified with the internationally protected areas