Abstract: Environmental science is young and still developing. Environmental protection was started to install only in the twentieth century, sixth-seventh decade, when the indiscriminate growth of environmental pollution has reached a critical point. Therefore, the structure of this young science is still not perfect. Comprehensive and systematic monitoring of the environment in Lithuania began after the Second World War. After regaining independence in 1993, Lithuania adopted a new ecological monitoring system, which, with some adaptations and modifications, has been existing until now. The analysis of the system of environmental protection of Lithuania emphasizes qualitative ecology, but little attention is paid to the analysis of the structure, the relationship between the qualitative and territorial environmental protection and the review of trends in the evolution. Holistic and systematic protection and conservation of the environment surrounding us started on 5 April 1990 when the Environmental Protection Department of the Republic of Lithuania was established, which originated differentiation of the environmental activities. During the development of the environmental protection administration, its areas have been distributed systematically, and different departments of the Ministry of Environment take care of the environment and nature. The events in the past show clearly that environmental protection is understood as an integrated system, but here it works in two main ways: environmental parameters (qualitative environment) and its components (territorial environment). It is more and more common among researchers to speak about the protection of the environment and nature as about two separate, but interrelated areas. P. Kavaliauskas defines the qualitative environment as follows: protection of air, water quality, waste management, environmental protection from physical contamination. The concept of the territorial environmental protection, according to P. Kavaliauskas, includes ‘landscape, forest, recreational environmental protection, the improvement of the system of protected areas, the management of natural resources'. P. Kavaliauskas claims that as a legal tool for the development of the territorial landscape is the formation of landscape policy. By combining the concepts of landscape and environment a broader and clearer understanding of the environment can be gained. The qualitative environment protection contains environmental and landscape elements of quality assurance monitoring and condition. So, in order to optimize the implementation of environmental measures and the improvement of the quality of environment, qualitative and territorial environment concepts should be legalized, as well as more analysis of the links between them is necessary. In Lithuania the qualitative monitoring of the environmental components of the environmental system consists of the following: air, water (surface, underground), soil and waste management and environmental landscape. The qualitative environmental network in Lithuania is composed of 3 613 monitoring stations. Most of the network is composed of the underground (2 590) and the monitoring of the water surface (838). The total intensity of the stations in Lithuania is very uneven. Most of them are in Ignalina (176 stations), Vilnius (168 stations) and Mažeikiai (149 stations) municipalities. The minimum number of monitoring stations in Lithuania is in five municipalities: Kretinga (23 stations), Ukmergė (22 stations), Rietavas (21 stations), Kazlų Rūda (17 stations), and Birštonas (6 stations). Complex monitoring of natural ecosystems (CMS) indirectly combines these two environmental trends. The nature of these stations is assigned to the qualitative monitoring of the environment, however, the observed areas are in the regions and national parks curated by the Territorial Environment Protection. Although the monitoring system is getting more and more complicated, the current quanti [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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