In June, Klára Řehounková participated as an invited speaker at the Aggregates Europe - UEPG conference in Belgium, this year focused on new trends in biodiversity support in mining areas. In a session focused on scientific knowledge and its application in practice, Klára had the opportunity to reach managers of large European mining companies. During the informal discussions, there was a lot of talk about the newly approved Nature Restoration Law.
The programme also included an excursion to a quarry. As the photos show, sometimes you just have to wait a few decades and nature will find its way even to places that may seem very inhospitable at the beginning.
A new project funded by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic has been recently launched in cooperation with entomologists. The project is aimed at assessing the impact of green roofs on biodiversity in cities. The project brings together experts from both disciplines to monitor the presence of plants and insects on green roofs. The project aims to find out which species of plants and insects are able to get on the roofs, how the roofs are evolving, and what impact they have on local ecosystems. The first phase of data collection started last week in České Budějovice. We expect interesting results that could contribute to a better understanding of the ecological functions of green roofs in urban environments.
This week, a workshop focused on meadow restoration using regional seed mixtures was held in the White Carpathians. Together with our Norwegian colleagues, we had the opportunity to see many interesting sites with examples of good practice. Wednesday morning was devoted to a summary of the finishing project Regional seed mixtures as an effective tool for the conservation of grassland habitat diversity. We shared the newly gained experience and preliminary results and presented future perspectives. In return, our Norwegian colleagues presented their knowledge of the management of restored grasslands.
Our partner school, Agricultural College and Agricultural Secondary School Benešov, invited us to give a lecture to their students about near-natural maintenance of the urban greenery and also about regional seed mixtures. Both topics will be incorporated into the developing educational materials materials within the TEAM#UP project. About 25 students from several different study programs listened to the lectures given by Klára and Kamča. We thank you for the invitation and we hope that the students enjoyed our talks.
Green roofs - can they help increase biodiversity in cities? Which organisms except insects can establish there spontaneously? What possibilities does this man-made habitat offer? In the following season, we will try aswer these questions together with our new bachelor student, Agáta.
We are thrilled to share the highlights from the first meeting of the esteemed TEAM#UP's Advisory Board members. You can find the inspiration of their energy and strategic vision driving our project forward in the 
On February 8 and 9, a conference called Two Days with Didactics of Biology took place in Prague. Lenka attended the conference. In addition to gathering a lot of inspiration for creating our educational materials, she had the opportunity to promote the TEAM#UP project in front of about 45 teachers. The contribution has been a success and according to the feedback from teachers, it is clear that our work makes sense. We are pleased that we could take part in this inspiring event!
