Lithuanian environmentalist Lina Paškevičiūtė awarded Valdas Adamkus prize

Environmental activist Lina Paškevičiūtė has been awarded the Valdas Adamkus Nature Conservation Prize for her efforts to shift Lithuania’s forest policy toward sustainability, LRT reports.

The €5,000 prize, presented at Vytautas Magnus University’s Botanical Garden on World Environment Day, recognizes Paškevičiūtė’s role as a co-founder of the Girių spiečius (Forest Crowd) movement and leader of the Environmental Coalition NGO. A sculpture by Kęstutis Dovydaitis was also awarded.

In her acceptance speech, Paškevičiūtė framed nature conservation as a test of societal maturity: “Many of us experience nature as a living being—a compatriot without citizenship, one that feels, responds, recovers, and perishes but cannot speak for itself. The clear-cutting of old-growth forests or the destruction of riverbanks is lived as profound loss.”

Former President Valdas Adamkus, in a recorded address, emphasized that environmental degradation undermines national security, economy, and culture: “Without a healthy environment, geopolitical safety and economic stability will suffer, and education and culture will become empty rhetoric. Nature conservation has always been, and always will be, an inseparable part of Lithuania’s progress.”

According to the university’s statement, Paškevičiūtė’s advocacy has pushed institutions, policymakers, and civil society to adopt changes benefiting conservation. Her work has helped transform forest policy from a niche technical debate into a public discussion, combining grassroots activism with scientific argumentation.

In 2023, she received the “Sacrifice of the Year” award at the Waste Culture Awards. The Valdas Adamkus Prize, relaunched in 2021 after a 16-year hiatus, previously honored filmmaker Mindaugas Survila, activist Giedrius Bučas, professor Tatjana Paulauskienė, waste management director Algirdas Reipas, and naturalist Selemonas Paltanavičius. The original prize, initiated by Adamkus in 1992, aimed to advance environmental protection in Lithuania.