Ten copies of the updated Red Book of Belarus have been handed over by ecologists to the collections of the regional library, and the central library systems of Vitebsk and Vitebsk District.
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, Aleksey 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; now it has been reclassified to the fourth, which means that the decline in population numbers is not threatened. The badger and the European bison have also been assigned the fourth category instead of the third.
The Red Book is the main document that summarises data 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 for the Vitebsk region includes 45 species of animals and 73 species of plants. 931 habitats and growing sites are under protection.
The Director of the V. Lenin Regional Library, Tatyana Adamyon, thanked for the gift and emphasised that great attention is paid to environmental topics at the cultural institution – exhibitions are organised, and various meetings on topical issues are held. Therefore, the fifth edition of the Red Book will be a valuable resource for their 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.