This article aims to fill the cognitive gap by providing evidence for different barriers hampering the innovative activity in ecotourism which concerns the promotion of the so-called transformative tourism concept. The research is devoted to identifying what are the most important barriers in the two areas: i) policy and regulation; ii) regional economic development. The observed absence of appropriate representative data for defining the state of the art in the field of transformative ecotourism as a new phenomenon is evident; therefore, it is suggested to use an expert survey for barriers identification in the field. The expert survey was done in the four post-socialist Baltic Sea countries/regions: Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and the St. Petersburg region (Russia) in autumn 2020. Research results disclose the existing similarities among barriers in researched regions and highlight the key areas for improvement in policy and regulation and economy-related fields, aiming to create a more favorable environment for promoting transformative ecotourism as prosperous innovation of future tourism.

In the paper we provide an analysis of the potential of agricultural holdings for biomass production, an assessment of the level of farm sustainability and a description of the farming conditions of agricultural holdings depending on the degree of natural valuation of a given area. The approach makes it possible to assess the level of sustainability of farms, also in the context of their potential and taking into account the quality of the production space and its importance for increasing biodiversity. We use public and unpublished data of Statistics Poland (2005, 2007, 2016) as well as data on farms keeping accounts for the Polish FADN in 2016–2018. The paper shows that although concentration processes are progressing, farm productivity is increasing, but this is linked to specialisation, leading to efficient management of labour and land resources. Nevertheless, the decreasing number of farms with proper winter vegetation cover and optimal balances was confirmed. The farming conditions of the farms should take into account the share and degree of natural value of the production space of the areas (municipalities) in which they are located. The study found that farms in municipalities with a high share of high natural value farmland (HNVf) areas, compared to the other municipalities, characterized by lower livestock density per ha UAA, which indicates their less intensive organisation of agricultural production. Moreover, in these municipalities, as their natural value increased, the share of forests and waters in the total area increased and the share of permanent grassland in the total area decreased slightly.

This paper discusses changes in population and labour in family farming in Poland. We analyse the size and socio-demographic characteristics of the farming population, the degree of utilisation of own labour resources on the farm and the assessment of labour inputs in family farming. Our research uses data from IERiGŻ-PIB field studies as well as general statistics. In comparison to the European Union as a whole, the socio-demographic (education and age) structure of the farming population in Poland is relatively favourable. There has been a significant reduction in the share of persons working exclusively on the family farm while the share of those with off -farm employment has increased. Around 500,000 persons who are not registered as unemployed and may be considered as redundant from the point of view of farming activities and represent hidden unemployment. We conclude that employment on family farms has a decreasing role in reducing the imbalance in the rural labour market in Poland