All land of the Republic of Belarus can be classified by categories (7 categories), types of lands (14 types), land users, forms of ownership and types of rights to land plots. The total area of land in the Republic of Belarus is 20760 thousand hectares, including agricultural land occupies 9103.0 thousand hectares (43.8%) of the total area of the republic; settlements, horticultural associations, dacha cooperatives – 849.0 thousand hectares (4.1%); industry, transport, communications, energy, defence and other purposes – 622.2 thousand hectares (3.0%); environmental, health, recreational, historical and cultural purposes – 868.7 thousand hectares (4.2%); forest fund – 8656.4 thousand hectares (41.7%); water fund – 37.3 thousand hectares (0.2%); reserve land – 623.4 thousand hectares (3.0%). The basis of the land resources used in the agro-industrial complex of the republic is arable land, meadows and land under permanent crops, which in general occupy 8387.1 thousand hectares, or 40.4% of the total area of land. The state owns 20683.6 thousand hectares (99.63%) of land, private property – 76.4 thousand hectares (0.37%) of the total area of all lands of the republic. In terms of environmental stability, the territory of the republic belongs to medium-stable territories, the coefficient of environmental stability is 0.63, and in terms of the degree of anthropogenic load – to territories with a relatively low anthropogenic load, the coefficient of anthropogenic load is 2.79.

Under the conditions of a global reduction in forest areas and climate change, it is important to preserve as many tree-covered areas as possible and understand change trends. The article purpose – aims at identifying forest area change trends of 19th –20th c. in the current forest land of the eldership Raudonė. In the research, historical topographic maps compiled during different periods, and 2019 data from the forest registry are used. The research method of a comparative analysis is employed. The change in forest areas was analysed, and forest areas that remained unchanged for 200 years were identified. The comparison of current forest areas reflected in the cadastral data and forest areas of the considered period allowed identifying the tendency of assigning land the purpose of forest land. During the research, the period with largest forest areas was determined to be the 19th c., and with the smallest – 1st half of the 20th c. During the Soviet period, forests areas were increasing, but did not achieve the same level as in the 19th c.

Loss of the territory biological diversity is one of the most serious challenges for sustainable development of Ukraine. Solution of that problem is the essential constituent of the national ecological policy, which is focused on introduction of the ecosystem approach in all spheres of social and economic development, including protection of biological diversity. The goal of the article is to study some aspects of protection of the biological diversity of rural areas by means of ecosystem renaturalization by transforming degraded and marginal arable lands into forests, grassland and wetlands. The research proposes an organizational mechanism of increase and expansion of the territories with natural lands, which includes planning of land use, landscape and ecological zoning, territorial organization, evaluation of ecosystem benefits, land users’ motivation. The researchers stress on the necessity to create ecological networks and agroforestry. Such structural organization of rural area supports a balanced combination of the “human-land-ecosystem” system due to protecting the main ecosystem functions, i.e., provision of regulating and habitat services. While determining the directions of use of the land plots with degraded and marginal arable lands, the obligatory condition is to justify the benefits from those ecosystem services. To regulate the environmental land relations, it is recommended to introduce conservation easement.

The aim of the article is to assess tourism and recreation resources and possibilities of their development in the selected areas in Kretinga, Trakai and Kaunas district municipalities. Natural and separate zones’ landscape complexes in Lithuania are favourable for recreation and tourism. Although Lithuania’s territory in comparison with other countries is not large, it is characterized by a huge variety of geographical complexes and landscapes. By recreational potential Lithuania surpasses even numerous European countries, which are arranged along the northern coastline. Rivers, lakes and forests constitute 25 % of the total Lithuania’s area. Forests, parks, sea, other water reserves, geomorphological structures are aesthetically valuable landscape complexes in the Republic of Lithuania and make up one third of the total area. Having conducted assessment of the landscape in the selected territories and analysed territory-planning documents of Kretinga, Kaunas and Trakai municipalities with regard to recreation and tourism, it has been identified that although the main kind of recreational activity in the analysed municipalities is educational recreation, tourism infrastructure is not sufficiently developed and there is a shortage of accommodation-providing companies. After assessment of the landscape in recreational objects, it has been noticed that the assessed objects are characterized by high spatial flora variety, prevailing greenery and plants. In addition, landscapes are varied and not fully adjusted to recreation and tourism.