Page 22 - State of Biodiversity 2019-2020

CITY NATURE CHALLENGE 2021
The April Nature Hunt
By Aaliyah Motala
April usually ushers in the EasterWeekend and school holidays but now it brings in another event: The City Nature Challenge. Organised by the California Academy of Sciences and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the City Nature Challenge is an international contest where people from over 200 cities contribute biodiversity observations onto iNaturalist within their city over a three-day period to contest the iNaturalist’s most biodiverse city for the year.
iNaturalist is an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information via pictures or sounds to help each other learn about and connect with nature. The platform helps you identify the plants and animals around you.The iNaturalist app is available for download on Google Play and the App Store.
Cape Town, the first South African city to participate in the Challenge last year, won two of the three criteria for the most biodiverse city in 2019. This victory encouraged five other southern African cities (eThekwini, Nelson Mandela Bay,Tswane, Garden Route District and Botswana’s Gaborone) to participate in the City Nature Challenge 2020. The global COVID-19 pandemic placed several quarantine restrictions on the public, which acted in the Challenge’s favour as people were encouraged to enjoy their immediate natural areas and backyards without the competitive vigour. The eThekwini City Nature Challenge 2020 organising committee was pleased with its contributions – with a total of 54 participants, over 2 000 observations and about 900 identified species – and would like to encourage people across our beautiful district to participate in the eThekwini City Nature Challenge 2021 on the weekend of 30 April to 3 May 2021.
SANBI’s Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers (CREW) citizen science programme is South Africa’s curator of iNaturalist and is keen to host both virtual or in-person courses as requested by both the public and organisations.
Euphorbia grandicornis ssp. grandicornis (Bigthorn Noors) by Felicity Crouch.
Trachylepis striata (African striped skink) by Erwin Sieben.
Want to know more about the challenge?
Head to https://citynaturechallenge.org/
Or contact
Suvarna Parbhoo-Mohan on s.parbhoo@sanbi.org.za or Aaliyah Motala on a.motala@sanbi.org.za
18 STATE OF BIODIVERSITY REPORT 2019/2020