Vojvodina is a typical agricultural area where all types of natural habitats are endangered by surface reduction, fragmentation and spatial isolation. More than three quarters of the area is overgrown with crops, ie 74.5% is cultivated, and 6.8% are meadows and pastures, which indicates that 82.8% of the area is under agriculture (Adamović, 2008). This indicates that there are fewer natural habitats, as well as a pronounced fragmentation.

Fragmentation of natural habitats has caused the loss of natural habitats, spatial isolation and uneven spatial distribution, which leads to the loss and further endangerment of biodiversity. Natural vegetation has been preserved in the form of smaller or larger isolated oases such as marshes, salt marshes, uncultivated parts of loess terraces, loess plateaus, and every other type of habitat that could not be converted to agricultural land. Steppe, sand and saline soil habitats are the dominant types of natural, primordial vegetation of Vojvodina. Pannonian loess steppe meadows, Pannonian sand steppes, Pannonian land dunes, Pannonian salt steppes and salt marshes were valorized as priority habitats of protection in Serbia (Ordinance on criteria for habitat types, vulnerable, endangered, rare and priority protection habitat types and protection measures for their conservation, “Official Gazette of RS”, 35/2010), as well as in EU countries (Habitats Directive – Directive 92/43 / EEC Annex I), which indicates their endangerment on an international scale.

The area of Okanj is dominated by Pannonian light salt steppes and salt marshes protected as a priority habitat type in the European Union. This area is characterised by a salt lake formed in the paleomeander of the Tisza river. It is surrounded by ponds and salt marshes of different salinity, and the remains of the steppe which are present in the higher parts. Okanj pond, in addition to Slano Kopov and Rusanda pond, is a specific center of halophytic species and ecosystem diversity in the Pannonian plant-geographical region, and is very significant ecosystem in context of the entire continent of Europe.

Flora and vegetation of Okanj pond, as one of the representative areas with salt, muddy and occasionally dried ponds on chloride solonetzes, has so far not been the subject of botanical studies. However, there are some data related to saline soil vegetation and wetland saline vegetation in the area of Vojvodina. Slavnić (1939, 1947, 1948, 1953) studied the halophytic vegetation of marshes in Vojvodina from the phytocenological, plant-geographical and economic point of view. Kujundžić (1979, 1980) researched the saline soil ecosystems of Bačka. Parabućski (1978) gives the syntaxonomic position of the salt marshes of western and southern Bačka on the basis of phytocenological research. Furthermore, there are numerous works by Hungarian authors (Bodrogközy, 1963-1964; Soó 1964-1973) on saline soil vegetation, which are important for the research of halophytic vegetation in Vojvodina.
The data on flora and vegetation presented in the study of protection is the result of field research in the period from 2006 to 2008, whose goal was valorization of natural assets, in order to establish the protection of the area. A complete inventory of flora has not been made, since the emphasis was on phytocoenologically significant species that are plant-geographically important, protected, endangered or of national and international importance for biodiversity conservation.