On the morning of Oct. 4, 2023, the international delegation of the networking event for the recipient countries of the so-called Norwegian Funds visited the Sites of Community Importance Vrbenská rybníky near České Budějovice. Several dozen representatives of European countries, including a team from The State Environmental Fund of the Czech Republic, got to know Zuzana Musilová's group from the Department of Ecology, which, thanks to Norwegian funds, is carrying out a project called The implementation of floating artificial islands for improvement of breeding conditions for waterbirds and increase of biodiversity in fishpond ecosystems. The participants, led by the Norwegian ambassador to the Czech Republic, Victor Conrad Ronneberg, were keenly interested in the research of water birds and the benefit of floating islands for their nesting, as well as the possibility of using the technology in other habitats, for example near the sea coast. The technical details and potential of the floating island method were also explained to the delegation by Milan Hladík from Vodohospodáský rozvoj a.s., which is a partner of the project financed under the Rago call.
