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The Planet has entered a new epoch - the Anthropocene; where human activities, such as mining for and burning of fossil fuels, land-use change, and industrialization are actively disrupting the planet’s state. The rate at which climate change is occurring as a result of human activity is unprecedented in recent millennia and poses many threats through drastic changes in rain fall patterns, rising sea level, retreating glaciers, and an increase in extreme weather events. Mountain ranges and the plant and animal species that thrive in specific ‘life zones’ on the mountain slope are particularly vulnerable to the threats posed by climate change. As temperatures increase, these ‘life zones’ will essentially shift upwards - and flora and fauna either adapt to warmer conditions, or migrate to avoid extinction. This begs the questions, where will species retreat to when there is nowhere further up the mountain to migrate? Assisted migration has been proposed as a potential solution for species unable to adapt to climate change or unable to migrate, and involves the deliberate interference of humans in relocating species to habitats, outside their historic range, in hopes of preventing the species from going extinct. I examined key patterns within assisted migration research from peer-reviewed literature, to highlight the current state of assisted migration research and debate. My aim is to identify whether research favored certain species or geographic locations, to highlight the ethical dilemmas associated with engineering nature, and the potential assisted migration has for sustainable development in mountain ranges. I conducted a literature review and content analysis of 68 journal articles. The results suggest that assisted migration research is heavily debated from scientific, ethical, political and economic perspectives; with a largely theoretical debate and with limited transfer into field experiments. Furthermore, there is an element of bias in research focusing on plant species of economic value as opposed to other species. Moreover, many ethical dilemmas in assisted migration research exist, but no consensus as to whether assisted migration is ethically justifiable. Lastly, I suggest there could be potential for assisted migration for sustainable development in mountain ranges, however there is a need for inter/transdisciplinary research to collaborate in implementing assisted migration.

The subject of this work is to describe czech mountains as a qualitatively different phenomenon from most of the other territory of the Czech Republic. The work is divided into four chapters. The first two chapters outline the theoretical background and methodology. On the basis of this methodology, the other two chapters analyse the landscape of the Bohemian Forest on three levels: natural, cultural and symbolic. The conclusion summarises the findings of field research carried out on the "Vintířova Stezka". Keywords: cultural representation, landscape, mountain ranges, spiritual dimension, cultural ecology

Fodder maize cultivation under low mountain conditions in Central Europe presents obstacles for organic dairy farmers; low temperatures and high precipitation values in spring delay the juvenile development of maize, which leads to lower and fluctuating yields. Increasing the soil temperature during the critical growth phase of maize in spring is beneficial for maize cultivation. For this reason, 0.15 m high ridge-row cultivation (RCM) of maize was compared to a typical flat surface cultivation method (FCM) with 0.75 m row spacing in three environments (En) in 2017, 2018 and 2020 on-farm at low mountain sites in Germany. In the experiment, with randomised block design and one-factorial arrangement, soil temperature (ST) at 0.05 m soil depth at midday, field emergence (FE) 4, 8, 16 and 20 days after sowing (DAS), dry matter yields (DM) in every En and plant development and N, P, K content in En 2020 were investigated. RCM led to a significantly higher ST 4 DAS in every En, 12 and 20 days in 2018 and 8 and 16 DAS in 2020. RCM did not accelerate maize FE but positively impacted plant development and starch content. RCM generated a higher dry matter (DM) yield of whole maize plants and corn cobs, and a higher protein yield than FCM. RCM slightly increased the plant-available P and Mg content from 0 to 0.3 m and influenced significantly the mineral N content from 0 to 0.3 m at the beginning of grain development. RCM, a simple cultivation technique, demonstrated benefits for maize cultivation, particularly for climatically marginal locations in Germany.