eThekwini Municipality recently achieved impressive results in the City Nature Challenge (CNC), securing second place overall in South Africa.
KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), covering regions such as the South Coast, eThekwini, KZN Midlands, the Dolphin Coast, and Zululand, claimed the silver medal position in Africa across all categories: numbers of participants, observations made, species recorded, and identifiers. The province recorded over 23,000 observations of 3,500 species, underscoring our rich biodiversity.
We are particularly proud of the contributions from the Sibaya Coastal Forest Reserve, which played a significant role in achieving this success. The dedicated efforts of citizen scientists from Sibaya helped highlight the importance of our coastal forest in preserving the region’s natural heritage.
Cape Town led the African leaderboard and made a notable global impact, securing 10th place for the number of observations made and 8th for the number of species recorded. Bolivian city La Paz emerged as the global leader across all categories.
The four-day global event, held from April 26 to 29, highlighted biodiversity in nearly 500 cities, with 83,528 participants making 2,436,844 observations of more than 65,682 species worldwide.
“We have much to celebrate as the southern African community,” said Suvana Mohan of the South African Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). “Thirty-six cities representing nine African countries participated, with a total of 136,234 observations made by 2,980 observers.”
Dr. Allister Starke, who led the local group, explained that the collected biodiversity data feeds into the SANBI-Global Biodiversity Information Facility (SANBI-GBIF) database. This database is a valuable resource for scientists, environmental managers, and conservationists, aiding global conservation efforts.
For the full article, visit the North Coast Courier here.
