Project country Lithuania

Environmental status in Lithuania

Although Lithuania still lacks a stronger focus on protecting the Baltic Sea, a growing number of initiatives and projects are being implemented to improve the state of the Baltic Sea. In Lithuania, as in other countries, cod fishing has been banned since 2020 due to the extremely poor state of cod populations. Baltic Sea Animal rehabilitation centre has been opened since 2022.

In Lithuania, the main activities disturbing bottom habitats are bottom trawling and sand dredging, excavation and dredging at sea. Unfortunately, the Baltic Sea has not achieved a good ecological environmental status, or is deteriorating. Only a few indicators of fishing impacts, food webs, seabed integrity were in good environmental status and the trend is towards improvement.