Lithuanian State Forests

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   The forest grows, ages, and suprises man by its peace, by its unpredictable changes in the course of the year. It seems to be able to tell man so much. But the forest keeps quiet because it is a magnificent creation of nature which man has to feel and learn himself how to understand it.

   A thousand years ago, art the time when Lithuania was mentioned in written sources for the first time, the forest was a concurrent of man; people ate, prayed, warmed themselves and hid away in the forest.

   ‘The forest that we tie with golden threads is nothing else than a nature tied thread knot, one end of which is hidden deep in the theory about the origin of the Earth, while the other end lies in even more secret fates of ourselves’, used to say Povilas Matulionis, one of the most famous forester professors of all times, whose 150th birth anniversary we are going to celebrate this year.

   Commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Re-establishment of Independence of the Republic of Lithuania we measure forest areas, count the accomplished pieces of work for the forests and the society and evaluate our achievements.

   The world economic recession of 2009 influenced the Lithuanian forest economy as well. There was a fall in wood prices up to 40 percent, as a result the income of forest enterprises decreased by 150 million Lt. In spite of the economic recession foresters from state forest enterprises carried out a variety of necessary activities – they cultivated forest saplings, generated or afforested forests, protected them from forest pests and fires, maintained forest roads, recreational objects and other forest related work. Forest enterprises paid 31 million Lt into the state budget; it was 4 million Lt more than in the previous year which was economically favourable. Foresters’ concentration and solidarity concerning the corporate purpose – strong and healthy forests – helped to avoid painful economic outcome.