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• Agricultural sector, rural environment and biodiversity in the Central and Eastern European EU member states

  46-64

  Jaan Liira

  Tsipe Aavik

  Oliver Parrest

  Martin Zobel

  Views:

  50

  During the second half of the 20th century, agriculture and the rural environment diverged in Western and Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC). CEE countries itself are heterogeneous in the respect of land use intensity and history. In the current review we focus on the comparison of the agricultural sector and threats on biodiversities of EU new-member countries from Central and Eastern Europe and the old EU(15) member states. The clustering of countries revealed groups distinguished according to the level of their economic productivity, discriminating mostly among eastern and western European countries. CEE countries sub-divided according to geographic region, including also some old members of the EU. Within the western cluster, two large sub-clusters became evident according to economy affected by altitudinal and climatic differences. Partly because there are still areas where the intensity of land use remained low, the biological diversity in many regions of Central and Eastern Europe has remained high. However, loss of extensively used habitats, the restoration on intensive agriculture, reforestation with exotic species and urbanization are major threats to nature in CEE countries. The estimated variability among CEE countries is caused by different historical and cultural backgrounds of those countries. Due to the complexity and geographical diversity of driving forces, there remains much uncertainty in the possible impacts of particular factors on land use. This complexity and diversity have to be considered when planning economic as well as ecological means for developing the agricultural sector and conserving biodiversity in the future of CEE countries.

• The Formation of Social and Economic Peripheries in Hungary after the Change of Regime

  179-187

  István Süli-Zakar

  Views:

  181

  The Hungarian industrial revolution started in the second half of the 19th century, which caused the revaluation of the geographical peripheries in Hungary. After the Trianon Treaty the rural areas of Hungary lost their foreign markets and became the "country of three million beggars". The socialist industrialization of the systems of Rákosi and Kádár absorbed the surplus of rural labour, but the industrialization meant the redistributive exploitation of the agricultural areas and the further impoverishment. After the political transition in 1989, the rural Hungary could not be the "pantry of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance", and the final crisis of the Hungarian agricultural sales finalized the deformation of the three-quarters of Hungary, the major part of the rural areas in Hungary. In the recent decades the brain drain worked in the Hungarian peripheries, the disinvestment and the pauperization increased. The emerging of the new latifundia and the monoculture commodity production operate independently, separated from the Hungarian rural people in the sense of ownerships and production. As the result of these negative processes, significant part of the society in the peripheral areas declassed. In this hopeless situation awareness only a conscious regional policy and above all, a very well-considered education is only able to offer a chance for break.