ABSTRACT

Growing world population is leading to an increasing pressure on land resources. In industrialized countries, agriculture and other rural activities are becoming more efficient and thus more selective in their choice of land and more intensive in its use. This has led to overproduction and a trend to the release of agricultural land for other purposes. At the same time, non-agricultural uses of land have increased. Urban developments with high space standards expand into the countryside. Extended leisure multiplies tourism, so that in many areas recreation has replaced agriculture as the main land use. The transport revolution vastly increases the accessibility of hitherto remote rural areas. The result is intense competition for the use of land. Areas previously regarded as natural wilderness rapidly acquire considerable economic importance. A wider public understands the challenge of the present situation: the extent to which thoughtless exploitation of natural resources and pollution threaten the quality of the environment, but at the same time the new opportunities for its conservation and improvement.