10 copies of the updated Red Book of Belarus were handed over by ecologists to the library collections of Vitebsk and Vitebsk district
Ten copies of the updated Red Book of Belarus were handed over by environmentalists to the collections of the regional library, and the central library systems of Vitebsk and Vitebsk region.
The fifth edition of the Red Book of Belarus was published in December 2025. It includes 523 species of plants and animals.
As noted during the presentation by the Deputy Chairman of the Regional Committee for Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, Alexey Markovsky, compared to the fourth edition, 55 species of plants and animals have been added, and 38 have been excluded. Many have changed their conservation status. For example, ten years ago, the brown bear was on the verge of extinction and had the first category, but now it has been transferred to the fourth, which means that the decline in population numbers is not threatened. Also, the fourth category instead of the third has been assigned to the badger and the European bison.
The Red Book is the main document that summarizes materials on the current state of rare and endangered species of plants and animals, on the basis of which the development of scientific and practical measures aimed at their conservation, reproduction and rational use is carried out.
The Red Book list of the Vitebsk region includes 45 species of animals and 73 species of plants. 931 habitats and growing places are under protection.
The Director of the V. Lenin Regional Library, Tatyana Adamyan, thanked for the gift and emphasized that great attention is paid to ecological topics in the cultural institution – exhibitions are organized, and various meetings on topical issues are held. Therefore, the fifth edition of the Red Book will be a good help in the work.
The first edition of the Red Book of Belarus was published in 1981 and included 85 species of wild plants and 80 species of animals.