Rural and Peri-Urban Areas Planning with the View to Improving Agroforestry and Landscape – EU Experience in Serbia

Abstract

Spatial and urban planning are fundamental spatial development mechanisms. Spatial development takes into account complex relationships of different activities and functions in space with the view to facilitating the establishment of the most optimal spatial interactions, on the one hand, and preventing conflicts in space, on the other. That is why spatial and urban planning is so crucial in all kinds of social activities in the specific space. With all that in mind, spatial and urban planning plays a significant part in improving agroforestry and landscape in rural and peri-urban areas as well, since these functions are especially important in such areas. This paper aims at stressing the significance of planning in improving agroforestry and landscape in the times of agricultural intensification, specific changes in the ownership over the land during the transition period in the Republic of Serbia, and the change of demographic structure and increasingly negative demographic trends, especially in rural areas. All these circumstances have caused the increased degradation of agricultural land (soil erosion, salinisation, chemical pollution, etc.), the change in the endemic landscape architecture (cutting down small forested areas, alleys, individual trees or groves, destroying wildlife habitats, flora and fauna loss, etc.), the abandonment of certain agricultural areas, and the pollution of both groundwater and surface water. The role of planning is to implement the EU directives and specific experience from the areas of supporting agricultural production development, improving demographic circumstances, and reducing negative impacts of intensive agricultural production on the environment. The concept rests on the symbiosis of the existing phenomena and processes, which serve as a basis for shaping spatial development policies and defining measures for the agroforestry and landscape improvement, and is an authentic European experience in Serbia. Urban planning measures are directed towards the increase of forested areas and windbreaks, recultivation and melioration of degraded agricultural areas, and the preservation of authentic landscape, trees or groves. The protection of natural resources is an integral part of every urban planning document in the Republic of Serbia. The current Spatial Plan of the Republic of Serbia, (SPRS) a framework planning document in the country, covers the topic of forestry and recognises the significance of protective forests. The protection and preservation of forests are planned to the purpose of preserving soil from degradation, improving the quality of forest and agricultural land, and environmental protection in general. The guidelines stipulated in SPRS are implemented by means of the planning documents deriving from the Plan, following the hierarchically ordered planning system in Serbia, down to the level of urban regulatory plans. Still, the examples of planning greenfield locations and repurposing of forest land into building land exceed the number of planned brownfield locations. A good practice example is planning shelterbelts around recultivated former minig sites. Putting in practice such documentation, aided by GIS tools and strategic environmental assessment, results in the integral protection and preservation of agricultural and forest areas, landscape, and the environment.