Agriculture has always played a determining role in Hungarian landscapes. Forested areas were also under agricultural use; however, their use changed, starting at least from the Middle Ages when the need for new arable fields resulted in a tremendous decrease in forested areas. The protection of forests started for many reasons, saving them for fuelwood and construction materials. This is the reason why there were periods when forests of the Carpathian Basin suffered from considerable pressure, and even today, this pressure continues; however, the source changed from animal husbandry to tourism, forestry, and wildlife management, or rather hunting. This created the need to search for and analyse former sustainable use of the forests. Furthermore, the consideration of the use of trees/treelines is under the scope of helping the climate adaptation of arable fields. Wooded grasslands have also been mapped and various analyses were done, related to their survival. We wish to introduce some of the ancestral forms of the agricultural use of Hungarian farming, where trees play an important role, their origin, distribution, threatening factors, and their future. Sustainable arable farming systems with trees, including wood-pastures; orchard grasslands and conventional, organic, and permaculture horticultural farms with various proportion of tree cover, will be described.

Recreation and nature-based tourism targeting forests are important cultural services provided by forests, and are also considered non-productive social functions of forests. Many factors influence the demand for forest recreation and tourism that are worth exploring for each forest area. The main aim of our study was to compare the results of visitor surveys related to two mountainous forested areas (Börzsöny and Cserhát) that are both located near to the capital city of Budapest but have different characteristics regarding the forests, accessibility, and the level of tourism infrastructure and services. The questionnaires focused on the characteristics of the visits, perceptions of visitors regarding the values of the areas, and the development needs besides the characteristics of the respondents. In addition to basic statistics, Chi² and Fisher’s exact tests were used to detect the differences between the two sites. Despite the different characteristics of the study areas, the main results were quite similar at both sites. Most respondents came from Budapest or within a 60 km distance of the sites by car with family and friends, mainly for hiking and nature walks, and spent less than a day in the areas. The state of forests was perceived as good in both areas. Landscape and fresh air were the most attracting factors for visiting both sites. There was a demand for more guided tours, and regarding tourism infrastructure development needs, benches and toilets ranked high at both sites. However, there were also some slight differences between the sites. For example, Börzsöny was visited more frequently, and railway and bicycle were more often used to access this site. Pleasant climate, easy access and fresh air were more important reasons to visit Börzsöny, and it was more associated with wilderness. In Cserhát, low prices and cultural values seemed more important reasons to visit; Hollókő as a world heritage site was highlighted, and more nature-related and other tourism development needs were mentioned regarding this site. These differences were probably due to the different characteristics of the forests (more mosaic forests in Cserhát), the level of the public transportation network, tourist infrastructure and services (higher in Börzsöny), and cultural heritage (more important in Cserhát). Based on our results, Cserhát needs more development in tourism infrastructure and services, while in Börzsöny, the development of a visitor management plan would be useful to harmonize the different uses of the forest.

The area of the Danube–Tisza Interfluve is of particular concern in terms of climate change, not only today, but it has also been in the past. In our research, we investigated the development projects of the Danube–Tisza Interfluve implemented in the last two financial cycles (2007–2013 and 2014–2020) of the European Union, regarding their climate-related impacts. Data about the development projects were retrieved from the official national project database. Development areas with positive and negative impacts regarding climate change were identified, and projects were assigned to these categories or a neutral category based on the content analysis of project titles and descriptions as well as the eligible activities included in the calls for proposals. Positive projects were also scored based on the approach they contribute to tackling climate change (mitigation: 3 points, adaptation: 2 points and indirect impact: 1 point). The number of these projects and the financial support they received were calculated for every development area category and also weighted by the impact scores. Our results show that from the 39,232 development projects completed over two EU financial cycles (2007–2020), only 11% were considered positive, less than 3% were considered negative and the rest were neutral regarding their climate-change-related impacts. Projects with negative impacts received more funding than projects with positive funding. Nevertheless, a positive trend can be seen, while more projects with positive impacts were implemented in the second cycle (2014–2020), receiving larger financial support. Our analysis also shows that development projects based on nature restoration and coupled with awareness raising can have the best impact score while they serve both mitigation and adaptation purposes and also have indirect impacts by fostering attitude change. We can conclude that much more emphasis should be laid on supporting projects for climate change mitigation and adaptations to reach our goal of climate neutrality.