Autumn edible mushrooms’ euphoria in Dzūkija, SE Lithuania: lessons to learn for an ethnobiology of situated and resilient forest practices

Abstract

Dzūkija is the most heavily forested region of Lithuania, and foragers and ethnographers alike describe it as the country’s epicentre of mushroom enthusiasm. We interviewed 34 foragers there in October 2025 (20 women, 14 men; mean age 56 years) to ask why gathering fungi in this region is lived as a collective euphoria rather than as an ordinary subsistence chore, and how that intensity connects to cross-border trade. On the region’s sandy, pine-dominated soils we recorded 18 fungal taxa, mainly Boletaceae, Suillaceae and Russulaceae. Around the town of Varėna the harvest does not pass through the centralised buying points typical of commodity chains elsewhere in Europe. It moves instead through a dense network of Polish-speaking intermediaries, who buy fresh fungi from individual foragers and feed them into Polish wholesale circuits supplying Western European markets. Picking itself stays solitary: each forager works the forest next to their own house, and no coordinated collection scheme exists. Our account rests on a small, purposive sample interviewed within a single autumn and is exploratory rather than representative. We argue that this pairing of solitary, home-anchored foraging with a collectively organised export trade can be read as a localised mycophilia that is economic and affective at once. Seen through Tim Ingold’s account of dwelling and wayfinding, the ability to move through Dzūkija’s seemingly undifferentiated pine forests, which offer neither paths nor boundary markers, is itself skilled wayfinding: an embodied, perceptual engagement with a forest taskscape learned by dwelling in it rather than from maps. We close by asking what this everyday ecological fluency could offer environmental education, which has barely drawn on it, and how it might anchor biodiversity literacy in practices that forest communities already value. Clinical trial number Not applicable. Mushroom euphoria is a distinct expression of situated mycophilia. Forest wayfinding depends on embodied perception and seasonal practice. Ecological knowledge persists through use and declines when not exercised. Foraging combines individual landscape skills with collective trade networks. Everyday mushroom gathering can function as environmental learning. • Build environmental education on existing foraging traditions. • Create repeated seasonal learning opportunities in local forests. • Engage skilled foragers in citizen-science and monitoring schemes. • Support intergenerational transmission of forest-based knowledge. • Treat ecological knowledge as a living practice, not only as heritage. • Ensure continued free access to the forest for walking and foraging.