Every year Lithuania’s Red Book of Threatened Species adds to its list a species that is extinct or on the brink of extinction. The most frequent cause of species extinction or the exacerbation of their condition is a lack of appropriate habitats or a change in their environmental conditions. Such a change can occur if the earlier conducted economic activity is terminated.

The diversity of the Lithuanian landscape, as much as its biological diversity in general, has evolved in response to various factors; therefore, some animals, plants, and mushrooms have adapted to live in age-old woods and virgin marshes while other living things needed habitats that were formed by traditional human activities. The Lithuanian Fund for Nature pays serious attention to both natural habitats and those formed by human activity over centuries, the latter of which are disappearing together with extensive farming.

The Fund seeks to revive and continue the traditions of age-old extensive agriculture and forestry in Lithuania. With the help of model projects for the maintenance of meadows and forests in various areas of the country, it aims at demonstrating to both the country’s land owners and politicians that the economic advantages and the conservation of biodiversity are closely interrelated. Wildlife is everywhere, not just in protected territories. Thus, in Lithuania it seeks to create and legalize an ecological network that would ensure a long-term protection of the country’s natural riches.