Curonian Lagoon

The Ministry of the Interior will step up the protection of Lithuania’s border with Russia’s Kaliningrad region this year. Border infrastructure and surveillance systems will be renewed for this reason, and more border guards hired.

The coronavirus pandemic and the Seimas election have been named the key 2020 events in Lithuania, according to Lithuanian journalists surveyed by BNS.

The Curonian Lagoon and the Baltic Sea did not have "good chemical status" last year, according to a report published by Lithuania's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Grigeo Klaipeda, a cardboard producer based in Lithuania's western city of Klaipeda, which released untreated wastewater into the Curonian Lagoon, will be forced to suspend operations in the middle of May, the company’s CEO has confirmed to BNS.

Launched in 2016 by the World Photography Organisation and ZEISS, the ZEISS Photography Award rewards the world’s most distinctive image-makers creating outstanding series showing their individual way of seeing the world. Photographers are challenged every year to submit bodies of work responding to...

Prosecutors from Klaipeda Regional Prosecutor's Office have brought suspicions against Gintautas Pangonis, president and major shareholder of Grigeo Group, a producer of cardboard, hygienic paper and wood fiberboard, over the release of untreated wastewater into the Curonian Lagoon by Grigeo Klaiped...

Grigeo Klaipeda, a cardboard producer based in Lithuania's western city of Klaipeda, which released untreated wastewater into the Curonian Lagoon, says that liability for environmental pollution lies with the company's former executives, first of all, Vidas Berzonskis who led the company in 2013-201...

Tests have found no contamination in fish from the Curonian Lagoon despite the release of untreated industrial wastewater by Grigeo's Klaipeda cardboard factory, the Lithuanian State Food and Veterinary Service said on Friday.

Suspicions of possible pollution of the Curonian Lagoon have been brought against Grigeo Klaipeda and its three employees, with sources telling BNS that they include the company's former director Vidas Berzonskis who was in charged of the production facility from June, 2013 until last May.

Part of assets of Grigeo Klaipeda, a local cardboard producer that released untreated wastewater in the Curonian Lagoon, has been arrested, its managing director Tomas Ekinas confirmed it to BNS on Tuesday.

Rimi Baltic, a chain of over 260 supermarkets in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, has joined a boycott against Grigeo amid accusations that the group's Klaipeda cardboard factory released untreated wastewater into the Curonian Lagoon.

In response to the Curonian Lagoon pollution scandal, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has decided to donate 4,000 euros to a research institute in Klaipeda, thus symbolically returning the amount of money his election campaign received from Grigeo Group CEO Gintautas Pangonis.

Five Lithuanian furniture producers supplying their products to Swedish furniture store chain IKEA are suspending the purchase of products produced by Grigeo Klaipeda, a Klaipeda-based cardboard producer, after it released untreated wastewater into the Curonian Lagoon.

Partially untreated wastewater from Grigeo's cardboard factory in Klaipeda was released into the Curonian Lagoon though an emergency pipe, the paper and wood industry group's president and biggest shareholder said on Thursday.

Lithuanian Environment Minister Kestutis Mazeika accused on Wednesday Gintautas Pangonis, the CEO of Lithuania's paper and wood industry group Grigeo, of lying about the causes of pollution in the Curonian Lagoon, and said the damage to the environment could amount up to 60 million euros.

Specialists from Lithuania's Environmental Protection Department plan to carry out an unplanned inspection of Grigeo Klaipeda, a Klaipeda-based cardboard producer, amid an ongoing investigation by the country's law enforcement into alleged pollution of the Curonian Lagoon.

Wastewater could be released into the Curonian Lagoon due to a breakdown, not intentionally, Gintautas Pangonis, president and major shareholder at Lithuanian paper and wood industry group Grigeo, says.

The search for the missing captain of a ship which sank in the Curonian Lagoon in Lithuania earlier this week will continue on Friday.

A sailing exhibit of the Lithuanian Sea Museum, a replica of a traditional fishermen boat – kurenas, has on Tuesday sunk in the Curonian Lagoon. Two people were saved but the captain is missing, Nina Puteikiene, spokeswoman for the museum told BNS Lithuania.

Lithuania plans to purchase new equipment to improve the protection of the state border, according to the plan of measures for the implementation of the governmental programme published on Thursday.