Director

Vidmantas Bezaras has been Director of the Department of Cultural Heritage under the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania since 4 December 2018; since 4 December 2022 he has served a second term of office.

In 1985, he graduated from the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Vilnius University with a degree in Landscape Geography, and started his professional career as a lecturer in geography-studies of local lore, history and economy at Šiauliai Pedagogical Institute. Since 1990 he has worked in the system of Lithuanian protected areas: in 1990, he was appointed the first Director of Žemaitija National Park, since 1998 - Deputy Director of the Department of Forests and Protected Areas under the Ministry of Environment, since 2002 - Deputy Director of the State Service for Protected Areas under the Ministry of Environment. From 2010 to 2018, he worked at the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Lithuania, first as Director of the Protected Areas and Landscape Department, and then as Head of the Protected Areas and Landscape Division of the Nature Conservation and Forest Department.

His work in the public sector has given him experience in the field of drafting legislation, environmental protection, green plantations, landscaping, architecture, cultural heritage, tourism, territorial planning, created conditions to acquire leadership and administration, and strategic planning skills.

He has many years of experience in inter-institutional cooperation - he was/is a member or head of more than 30 inter-institutional commissions, working groups (in the fields of environmental protection, cultural heritage, green plantations, tourism, communication, agriculture and science), a member of the Lithuanian Tourism Council, the Council for the Safeguarding of Ethnic Culture, the Lithuania-Russian Border Delimitation and Demarcation Commission, and other commissions and working groups.

Alongside his work in state institutions, he worked as a lecturer at Vilnius University of Educology for more than a decade and later – as a lecturer at Vilnius University. He has publicised more than 20 scientific articles on landscape, geography, tourism and protected areas. He is a member and founder of various tourist, hiking, local history clubs and movements, an organiser of local lore and history expeditions, the first environmental and monument protection campaigns, and a member of the Sąjūdis [Reform] Movement.

He represents the Department and Lithuania in the European Heritage Heads Forum, the Baltic Sea Region Cultural Heritage Committee, bilateral Polish-Lithuanian and trilateral meetings of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. He is currently a member of the Lithuanian National Commission for UNESCO.