The project, which started in 2018, aims to create 5 new protected areas and improve the conservation status of 18 habitat types and 19 species. In addition, its objectives are to reverse population trends of 23 bird species, restore sand plains, semi-natural grasslands and different types of forest, and better integrate nature conservation measures into agriculture, forestry, tourism and other sectors.

The Lithuanians based their project on solving the bottlenecks in the implementation of Natura 2000 and its action plan, for which they have a number of pilot projects underway, and if these prove successful, a more systematic approach to the problems that need to be addressed will be created based on them.

As both projects are testing a result-based support system in semi-natural grasslands, we spent a lot of time in flood plains and meadows discussing two quite different approaches. In Lithuania, a meadow is assessed according to the number of species – the greater the number of plant species counted in a meadow, the higher the compensation. In Estonia, however, we are trying to take a more general approach to the areas and their potential, with less emphasis on species richness. In a few years' time, it will be fascinating to compare the results of these approaches!

We also visited forest habitats where various conservation works are planned in the near future: forested sand plains will be opened up, especially for endangered hymenopterans. The effectiveness of burning for regeneration of forest stands and conservation of rare species will also be studied. Whether everything will go as planned remains to be seen, and it would be expedient to share experiences again before we start restoring our dry forests.

From the field of ornithology, the Song Meter SM4, an acoustic monitoring device that captures the sounds of nature in the forest similarly to the human ear, was introduced to us. While the usual method is to record birds at a single location within 5–15 minutes, this device is more patient and the longer running time provides additional information. And the difference can be significant – in one test area, the equipment recorded twice as many bird species compared to human observation. Since the equipment can scan through hundreds of gigabytes of audio files in a few moments and find what it needs much faster than a human, it could be used in Estonia for making decisions related to conservation management, whether to gather additional information in a protected area or even as evidence for when it is necessary to stop logging during the breeding season, according to our experts.

There were many other commonalities – similar to the event recognising our best meadow managers, Lithuania is running a Green Farmer competition to introduce to public farmers who offer healthy and environmentally friendly products and are willing to share their experiences. However, the broader aim of the competition is to modernise the stereotypical image of exemplary farming. That is, a good field cannot be described in terms of uniform height, homogeneity and lack of weeds, and a good farmer is one who has introduced landscape elements that encourage biodiversity between fields. And farming is not just about running a business, but first and foremost about taking care of the land.