EN
Extension of agriculture and intensification of its forms caused a number of serious threats to rural environment. The most important among them are: 1 – deficits and pollution of water, 2 - soil degradation by erosion, chemical contamination and decline of organic matter content, 3 - impoverishment of biological resources in agricultural landscape. Results of agroecological research of last decades have shown that noxious or undesirable effects of agriculture on the environment can be essentially restricted or compensed by the management of biogeochemical barrier systems in rural landscape structure. Their main elements are shelterbelts, mid-field woodlots, water bodies, wetlands and meadows. Regional needs of augmentation and improvement of shelterbelt networks were estimated for the whole country and guidelines of their management were indicated depending on desirable function to perform. The greatest requirements in this respect are in the wide belt of strongly deforested central - Polish lowlands, due to water deficits and wind erosion, and in the southern upland and foothill areas, strongly threatened by water erosion. However. in many smaller areas all over the country management of mid-field afforestation was neglected in the past, so their introduction or restoration became necessary. For the optimal shapening of agricultural landscape structure according to the ecological guidelines, in total ca 350 thousand hectares should be appropriated for shelterbelt and woodlot network, whereas a minimum area has been estimated at the level of about 250 thousand hectares. A system of economic incentives in recompense land owners for afforestation has also been proposed. Presented programme considers main principles of the country's programme providing 600 thousand hectares for afforestation increase, elaborated by the Forestry Research Institute, and both ones should be accomplished in close integration.