Fungi (mushrooms and lichens) in Serbian legislation

Abstract

Protection and conservation of mushrooms and lichens is considered to be an extremely important aspect of environmental conservation as a whole; and numerous environmental, scientific, medical, economic, cultural and ethical reasons exist in support of their central significance. This paper presents an overview of official regulations on the protection of macrofungi and lichens in the Republic of Serbia: from the Protection act of 1991 until today. Both good and bad provisions of individual regulations are analyzed, together with the effects of adopted regulations on the protection of endangered species of fungi (macrofungi mushrooms) and lichens are discussed. In addition, the correlation between the chronological development of protective legislation and the natural population of fungi is addressed; and general measures to improve protection of mushrooms and lichens in the future are presented. Finally, the need for increased studies on mushrooms and lichens is proposed as a basis for effective protection based on scientific knowledge and expert experience.