The four main ways in which rural employment creation can be grounded on the exploitation of natural capital can be structured by two complementary analytical directions. These are firstly, ‘production’ based on (a) renewable resources (agriculture, energy) and (b) depletive...

One of the most pressing phenomena in recent decades in Europe’s rural areas is population decline. This article summarises how the national sustainable development strategies (NSDS) and the national rural development programmes (NRDP) of the European Union (EU) Member States...

The starting point of the EDORA project was the recognition that, rather than becoming more uniform in character, rural Europe is, in many ways, becoming increasingly diverse, implying new challenges and opportunities. The project’s overarching aim was to examine the process of...

Sustainable rural development is one of the social, economic and territorial cohesion aspects of the European Union. In the current financial perspective 2007-2013 rural areas development is supported by the Common Agricultural Policy, which does not always contribute to improvement of their...