ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on applied research concerned directly with the utilization of the nation's land resource base for sustainable economic development. It also focuses on a comprehensive model of land research and how it relates to contemporary rural land issues in Canada. The chapter discusses a catalogue of some of the major environmental issues which are emerging and which provide opportunities for the application of the talents of the academic and planning community. It describes a framework for the examination of the kinds of work necessary to deal with a number of emerging environmental issues, all of which are closely associated with how the land resource base is allocated and managed. The great risk is that the land resource itself will be degraded beyond the point where mitigative action will be feasible to maintain renewable resource production capacity. The chapter presents a way of looking at land resource problems and research related to them in Canada.
