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Increases in bioresources and food production in the world have become objective needs. Production expansion increases the impact on the sustainability of the natural environment and ecosystems. The sustainability of the natural environment is ensured through the creation of specially protected areas. The planning of local municipality economic development should consider the management categories of protected areas, which is an important global standard for planning, design and management. This paper presents an overview of what impact the nature conservation area had on local economic development in Latvia. By using data from the State Land Service and the Central Statistical Bureau, the paper summaries and explains statistical information about the sizes of Latvian territories protected to various degrees from the current standpoint of nature conservation processes. The data have been collected for the period from 2010 to 2018. According to the data of the State Land Service, the total protected area in the year 2018 was 771278.19 thou. ha or 12.28 % of the total land area of Latvia. The proportion of protected nature territories in 110 municipalities of Latvia was in the range from 0% in Stopini municipality to 68% in Ligatne municipality. A statistical analysis of the data found that in the year 2018 the Territory Development Index for municipalities with a proportion of protected nature territories in the total area from 0% to 2.6% was (negative) - 0.16; for municipalities with a proportion of protected nature territories ranging from 2.6% to 7%, the index was - 0.24; for municipalities with a proportion of protected nature territories from 7% to 17%, the index was - 0.16; for municipalities with a proportion of protected nature territories ranging from 17% to 68%, the index was - 0.15. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To comply with the requirements of EU Directive 2009/28/EC for using renewable energy sources (RES) in Latvia, the agricultural industry has to become a significant supplier of resources to energy producers and consumers. Agricultural crops have always been used for the production of food, feed, fibre, and fuel. Already in 2003, the program "Biofuel Production and Use in Latvia (2003-2010)" was approved. The approval of the program laid the foundations for a biofuels market. Biofuel production satisfies the domestic market demand, as well as the excess is being exported. At the end of the program, the government stopped supporting the biofuels industry. First-generation biofuel production is not competitive without government support. First-generation biofuel production technology could not overcome the development of the valley of death. Only the creation of bio-economy-based technologies for biofuel production can ensure its competitiveness [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latvia has been actively involved in reducing global climate change. However, since 2006, along with an increase in economic activity, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from Latvia's agricultural sector have tended to increase; besides, the agricultural sector is the second largest source of GHG emissions, in 2015 accounting for 24.2% of the total GHG emissions in the country. Such changes in GHG emissions from agriculture in Latvia indicate that without additional measures Latvia cannot reach its GHG emission targets set internationally as one of the EU strategic goals is to introduce low carbon farming in practice. Experience of different countries shows that several approaches may be applied to analyses of GHG reduction activities. This paper develops a marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) for crop farming applicable in Latvia's agriculture. A range of specific measures, which aims to foster effective fertilizer application and improve soil fertility were screened for their cost-effectiveness and mitigation potential using disaggregated approach. Results indicate that MACC approach is useful tool for understanding and motivating mitigation in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]